Climate change is already altering the face of our planet. Research shows that we need to put all our efforts over the coming decade to limit warming to 1.5°C and mitigate the catastrophic risks posed by increased droughts, floods, and extreme weather events.

But our actions will not be effective if they do not include measures to ensure social justice, equality and a gender perspective. So, how do we integrate gender equality in climate change actions?

The impact of climate change affects women and girls disproportionately due to existing gender inequalities. It also threatens to undermine socio-economic gains made over previous decades.

With limited or no access to land and other resources including finance, technology and information, women and girls suffer more in the aftermath of natural disasters and bear increased burdens in domestic and care work.

Women and girls have also seen their water collection time increased and firewood and fodder collection efforts thwarted in the face of droughts, floods and deforestation, occupying a significant portion of their time that could have been used for their education or leisure.

This is not only theory. For example, women and children accounted for more than 96 per cent of those impacted by the flash floods in Solomon Islands in 2014 and in Myanmar, women accounted for 61 percent of fatalities caused by Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

Women and girls also remain marginalized in decision-making spheres — from the community level to parliaments to international climate negotiations. Global climate finance for mitigation and adaptation programmes remain out of reach for women and girls because of their lack of knowledge and capacity to tap into these resources.

Despite these challenges, women and girls play a critical role in key climate related sectors and have developed adaptation and resilience-building strategies and mitigation techniques, such as driving the demand for renewable energy at the household and community levels for lighting, cooking and productive use solutions that the international community must now support.

Women are holders of traditional farming methods, first responders in crises situations, founders of cooperatives, entrepreneurs of green energy, scientists and inventors, and decision-makers with respect to the use of natural resources.

Women comprise an average of 43 percent of the agricultural work force in developing countries1 and manage 90% of all household water and fuel-wood needs in Africa. Some studies have shown that if women were afforded equal access to productive resources as men, their agricultural outputs would exceed men’s by 7 to 23 percent. It is therefore imperative to embrace and scale-up the initiatives of the 51 per cent of the world’s population.

In recent times, women and girls have used their knowledge and experience to lead in mitigation efforts. From developing apps to track and reduce the carbon emitted as a result of individual consumption, to reducing food by connecting neighbors, cafes, and local shops to share leftover and unsold food 2.

Young women scientists, like South-African teenager Kiara Nirghin, are making a difference in the fight against climate change. They are building on the legacies of women and girls such as Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who empowered communities to manage their natural resources in a sustainable way.

At the same time, UNDP and UN Women have been collaborating to advance gender equality and women’s leadership on climate change. For example, in Ecuador, the two UN agencies have teamed up with the government to support the inclusion of gender in the country’s climate action plans.

UNDP and UN Women have also collaborated globally to ensure that gender remains a key factor when world leaders make critical decisions on climate change.

If policies and projects take into account women’s particular roles, needs and contributions to climate action and support women’s empowerment, there will be a greater possibility to limit warming to 1.5°C in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We must continue to engage women and women’s organizations, learning from their experiences on the ground to build the evidence for good practices and help replicate more inclusive climate actions.

The UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23, 2019 is a unique opportunity to elevate at the highest level the need for substantive participation of women and girls in efforts against climate change.

At the Summit, there will be several initiatives put forth to address climate change, including one focusing on gender equality. The initiative recognizes the differential impact of climate change on women and girls, and seeks support for their leadership as a way to make climate actions more effective.

It calls for the rights, differentiated needs and contributions of women and girls to be integrated into all actions, including those related to climate finance, energy, industry and infrastructure. It promotes support for women and girls in developing innovative tools and participating in mitigation and adaptation efforts and calls for accountability by tracking and reporting progress towards achieving these goals.

For climate action to get more traction and be effective, we need a critical mass of Governments and other stakeholders to sign on to the Climate Action Summit’s gender-specific initiative. The world cannot afford to keep limiting the potential of women and girls in shaping climate actions, as all evidence points towards the benefits of their involvement.

There is already interest by United Nations Member States, as shown in the increased integration of gender considerations in their national climate plans, but a broader movement is needed. We need multi-stakeholder partnerships and engage a critical mass of supporters – governments, UN entities, financial mechanisms, and civil society organizations to support the gender-specific initiative of the SG’s Climate Action Summit.

The time for gender-responsive climate action is now.

1 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food and Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development (Rome: FAO, 2011a).2 Olio, a food-sharing app was founded by women from Sweden, the UK and USA. For more info: https://unfccc.int/climate-action/momentum-for-change/women-for-results/women-leading-a-food-sharing-revolution; One Million Women was founded by a woman in Australia to get one million women to change their lifestyles to mitigate climate change. The group has an app that provides the tools to cut carbon pollution in home energy savings and clean energy options, minimising food waste, reducing over-consumption, investing and divesting (your money) wisely, sustainable fashion, low-impact travel, etc. For more info: https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/

Ulrika Modéer is UNDP’s Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, and Anita Bhatia is UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, Sustainability and Partnerships.

It has been a long, arduous journey – a journey ridden curiously with obstacles and indifference. Two decades have passed by since the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted, by consensus and without reservation, its landmark and norm-setting resolution 53/243 on the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace in 1999.

The current President of the UNGA Ms Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador is convening on 13 September the UN High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace underlining the importance the world body attaches to full and effective implementation of this forward-looking decision.

It was exactly on that date 20 years ago the UN took its most forward-looking stride in ensuring a peaceful planet for all of us since the Charter of the UN in 1945. The UN Charter arose out of the ashes of the Second World War and the UN Declaration and the Programme of Action on Culture of Peace was born in the aftermath of the long-drawn Cold War.

Simply put, the Culture of Peace as a concept means that every one of us needs to consciously make peace and nonviolence a part of our daily existence. We should not isolate peace as something separate or distant. We should know how to relate to one another without being aggressive, without being violent, without being disrespectful, without neglect, without prejudice.

It is important to realize that the absence of peace takes away the opportunities that we need to better ourselves, to prepare ourselves, to empower ourselves to face the challenges of our lives, individually and collectively.

It is also a positive, dynamic participatory process wherein “dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury

Each and every individual is important to the process of transformation required to secure the culture of peace in our world. Each person must be convinced that nonviolent, cooperative action is possible.

If a person succeeds in resolving a conflict in a nonviolent manner at any point in time, then this individual has made a big contribution to the world because this singular act has succeeded in transferring the spirit of non-violence and cooperation to another individual. When repeated, such a spirit will grow exponentially, a practice that will become easier each time the choice is made to face a situation, resolve a conflict non-violently.

On 16 December 1998, at a Security Council meeting on the maintenance of peace and security and post-conflict peace-building, I implored that “International peace and security can be best strengthened, not by actions of States alone, but by women and men through the inculcation of the culture of peace and non-violence in every human being and every sphere of activity. The objective of the culture of peace is the empowerment of people.”

As we were coming out of the Cold War, it dawned on us to see how best to take advantage of the end of that era of bitter rivalry and proxy wars and to make peace sustainable.

The Constitution of UNESCO says, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” The concept of the culture of peace started evolving in this spirit, to promote a change of values and behavior.

Soon after I became the Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York in 1996, I felt that the culture of peace is a marvelous concept that humanity needs to embrace. I took the lead in proposing in 1997 along with some other Ambassadors in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to include a specific, self-standing agenda item of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on culture of peace.

A new agenda item on the culture of peace was thus agreed upon after considerable negotiating hurdles and the new item was allocated to the plenary of the General Assembly for discussion on an annual basis.

Under this item, UNGA adopted in 1997 a resolution to declare the year 2000 the “International Year for the Culture of Peace”, and in 1998, a resolution to declare the period from 2001 to 2010 the “International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World”.

On 13 September 1999, the United Nations adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Culture of Peace, a monumental document that transcends boundaries, cultures, societies and nations.

It was an honour for me to Chair the nine-month long negotiations that led to the adoption of this historic norm-setting document that is considered as one of the most significant legacies of the United Nations that would endure generations.

I introduced the agreed text of that document (A/RES/53/243) on behalf of all Member States for adoption by the Assembly with its President Didier Opertti of Uruguay chairing the meeting. Through this landmark adoption, the General Assembly laid down humanity’s charter for the new approaching millennium.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of that momentous action by the most universal global body in a “befitting manner” on 13 September 2019, the on-going 73rd session of the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution 73/126 on 12 December 2018 – with the co-sponsorship of 100 Member States led by Bangladesh – which requested “the President of the General Assembly to give special attention to the appropriate and befitting observance of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action, which falls on 13 September 2019, by holding the high-level forum on that date, which will be an opportunity for renewing the commitments to strengthen further the global movement for the culture of peace.”

A significant aspect of the essential message as articulated in the UN documents effectively asserts that the “culture of peace is a process of individual, collective and institutional transformation.” Transformation is of the most essential relevance here.

The Programme of Action identifies eight specific areas which encourage actions at all levels – the individual, the family, the community, the nation, the region – and, of course, the global level. Though the Declaration and Programme of Action is an agreement among nations, governments, civil society, media and individuals are all identified in this document as key actors.

It is essential to remember that the culture of peace requires a change of our hearts, change of our mindset. The Culture of Peace can be achieved through simple ways of living, changing of our own behavior, changing how we relate to each other.

How do we build and promote the culture of peace? To turn the culture of peace into a global, universal movement, the most crucial element that is needed is for every one of us to be a true believer in peace and non-violence.

A lot can be achieved in promoting the culture of peace through individual resolve and action. By immersing ourselves in a mode of behaviour that supports and promotes peace, individual efforts will – over time – combine and unite, and peace, security and sustainability will emerge. This is the only way we shall achieve a just and sustainable peace in the world.

All educational institutions need to offer opportunities that prepare the students not only to live fulfilling lives but also to be responsible and productive citizens of the world. For that, educators need to introduce holistic and empowering curricula that cultivate the culture of peace in each and every young mind. Indeed, this should be more appropriately called “education for global citizenship”.

Such learning cannot be achieved without well-intentioned, sustained, and systematic peace education that leads the way to the culture of peace. If our minds could be likened to a computer, then education provides the software with which to “reboot” our priorities and actions away from violence, towards the culture of peace.

For this, I believe that early childhood affords a unique opportunity for us to sow the seeds of transition from the culture of war to the culture of peace. The events that a child experiences early in life, the education that this child receives, and the community activities and socio-cultural mindset in which a child is immersed all contribute to how values, attitudes, traditions, modes of behavior, and ways of life develop.

We need to use this window of opportunity to instil the rudiments that each individual needs to become agents of peace and non-violence from an early life. I would like to add that young people of today should embrace the culture of peace in a way that can not only shape their lives but can also shape the future of the world.

Let us – yes, all of us — embrace the culture of peace for the good of humanity, for the sustainability of our planet and for making our world a better place to live.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), Permanent Representative of Bangladesh (1996-2001) and Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations (2002-2007)

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/culture-peace-takes-big-stride-un-observes-20th-anniversary-norm-setting-1999-decision/feed/0Domestic violence: Still a formidable challengehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/domestic-violence-still-formidable-challenge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=domestic-violence-still-formidable-challenge
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/domestic-violence-still-formidable-challenge/#respondFri, 06 Sep 2019 19:03:13 +0000Talisha Farukhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163131After a week’s absence, Nazma entered the house with a lacklustre expression spread across her normally cheerful demeanour, with the slack of her sari pulled low over her face. When questioned in regards to her absence, while hesitant at first, she later revealed that she had been repeatedly threatened, forced to have sexual intercourse, and […]

After a week’s absence, Nazma entered the house with a lacklustre expression spread across her normally cheerful demeanour, with the slack of her sari pulled low over her face. When questioned in regards to her absence, while hesitant at first, she later revealed that she had been repeatedly threatened, forced to have sexual intercourse, and consequently suffered a miscarriage.

A few weeks prior to Nazma’s revelation, I learned about a friend’s divorce from her longstanding abusive husband. While I was elated at the news that my friend was finally free from the reigns of domestic violence, she revealed how her divorce, instead of securing a life of freedom, had instead thrown her into a custody battle over her only child and had caused further suffering as a result of constant threats from her ex-husband and his family. When the fights became unbearable, my friend turned to both the police as well as her family and received the same dire response: “These things happen in a marriage. Learn to compromise.”

Domestic violence remains an issue irrespective of socioeconomic status in Bangladesh. I hear the same outcry for help from Nazma, whose spouse works as a rickshaw-puller, as I do from a friend, whose former spouse owns a thriving garments company in Bangladesh. This is an issue, which holds no bias.

Violence against women is one of most rampant human rights violations worldwide, and is further exacerbated by unequal power dynamics between women and men that is reinforced by inequalities under the law. According to UN Women, one in five adolescent girls, in Bangladesh, between ages 15 and 19, reported experiencing sexual violence at the hands of their partner. Moreover, more than 80 percent of currently married women have experienced abuse at least once during their marriage, in most cases from individuals they knew and trusted, and more than one in four women experience sexual or physical violence of some sort during their lifetime. In total, according to the Violence Against Women Survey 2011, a nationwide study conducted by the government, at least 87 percent of Bangladeshi women face domestic violence.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. Over the last few decades, the country has adopted several laws and policies meant to address violence against women and girls, such as the 2009 High Court’s Directive on Sexual Harassment, the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act (DVPP) 2010, the Women and Child Repression Suppression Act, and the revision and launch of the National Action Plan on violence against women and children in November 2018. Bangladesh further experienced advancements made in terms of policy framework, with victories such as the High Court’s eradication of the degrading “two-finger test” for rape victims and the more recent removal of the term “Kumari” (virgin) from column 5 of Bangladesh’s standardised Muslim marriage contract.

In the third chapter of the DVPP Act of 2010, the duties and responsibilities of police officers, enforcement officers (EO) and service providers are detailed. Under Section 4, if a “police officer obtains, by any means whatsoever, the information as to the commission of an act of domestic violence or becomes aware of such occurrence”, such an officer shall inform the survivor of her rights, “including the right to make an application for obtaining relief by way of any order under this Act,” of the availability of medical services, and of the services offered by the EO. The police officer must also inform the individual of her right to free legal help under the Legal Aid Services Act, 2000 and her right to file a formal complaint under other existing laws.

Bangladeshi women’s and human rights organisations, including Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Mahila Parishad, Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA), and several other organisations actively provide different forms of assistance (legal aid, mediation, halfway homes, etc.) for those affected by domestic violence. Some organisations such as ASK even provide free legal advice to any person who contacts the organisation at any of the legal clinics located across Dhaka city. Given the safety battles associated with filing a formal complaint, ASK also provides fieldworkers who accompany clients to police stations, the Marriage Register’s (Kazi’s) offices, hospitals, and to the courts when necessary. The BNWLA shelter homes, Proshanti, also provide shelter services to women and children as they await legal aid.

Furthermore, Maya Apa, a messaging platform provides on-demand health and well-being information online, whereby users can pose their health and legal questions anonymously to experts within the respective fields. This allows users to overcome the social stigma oft-associated with seeking support and discussing sensitive subjects.

With such a myriad of services and legal sanctions in place throughout the country, it was expected that domestic violence against women would decline; yet, current statistics have contradicted such assumptions and violence against women remains widespread.

One of the primary pitfalls within the system lies in the enforcement of legal doctrines, lack of adequate training for law enforcement officers, the public’s inability to navigate the legal arena, and in the inability/refusal to seek refuge when required. As of 2015, only 2.6 percent of women in Bangladesh took legal action against the physical or sexual violence they have endured at the hands of their partners. Cultural norms also make it difficult for women to seek assistance because of the sociocultural stigma associated with seeking legal aid and taking a case to court, which is often equated with “dishonouring the family name”.

Like many battles in Bangladesh, it evidently comes down to which party has more power—the victim or the perpetrator. Even if survivors do manage to access the law, they often experience trauma on their journey to obtain justice. Incidents of police inertia as well as brutal harassment of women are commonplace, along with having to pay bribes to register cases, which often unravel based on political patronage and economic influence. Furthermore, patriarchal social structures, cultural and religious dogma and superstitions further aggravate the problems.

However, the tendency to commit violence within the family is so deeply rooted that it is only by the proper enforcement of law that we can curb it. Moreover, there exists a strong need, for capacity building of institutions, ensuring sufficiency of resources, coupled with education and awareness of the drivers, and increased cooperation between state and non-state actors. As stated by the UN CEDAW Committee, in order to promote Women’s Human Rights, the Bangladeshi government must commit to ensuring greater gender equality, improving service delivery, and heightening access to immediate means of redress, rehabilitation, and protection.

A home is meant to serve as a sanctuary. Unfortunately, it is also a breeding ground for some of the most life-threatening forms of violence. Therefore, the next time we are approached for assistance by a loved one or we witness the suffering of someone we know, we should provide them with the reassurance and direction they so desperately need, for such incidences are not matters to be resolved at home, alone and in fear. Our women are putting enviable successes in different sectors all over the map, and it is high time we do the utmost to encourage their safe and healthy development.

Talisha Faruk has a bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently working as an Immigration Paralegal for the law firm Berry Appleman & Leiden, LLP in California. Additionally, she is also working as an intern for Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST).

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/domestic-violence-still-formidable-challenge/feed/0Is There Discrimination Against Women in Healthcare in India?http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/discrimination-women-healthcare-india/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=discrimination-women-healthcare-india
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/discrimination-women-healthcare-india/#respondThu, 05 Sep 2019 08:14:59 +0000Farhana Haque Rahman and Raghav Gaihahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163111In an inaugural lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, Amartya Sen began with a swipe at Queen Victoria who complained to Sir Theodore Martin in 1870 about & quote: this mad, wicked folly of ‘Woman’s Rights’ “, as in her rarefied world nobody could trample upon her rights. The world has of course […]

In an inaugural lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, Amartya Sen began with a swipe at Queen Victoria who complained to Sir Theodore Martin in 1870 about & quote: this mad, wicked folly of ‘Woman’s Rights’ “, as in her rarefied world nobody could trample upon her rights. The world has of course changed dramatically and women’s rights are widely acknowledged but injustices persist. Our concern here is with health injustices that are widely prevalent in India. These take multiple forms: female foeticide, widespread morbidity and denial of access to good quality healthcare until a critical condition develops. Our focus here is on vulnerability of women to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their limited access to good quality healthcare in India.

Farhana Haque Rahman

NCDs kill 40 million annually, accounting for about 70 % of all deaths globally. NCDs are chronic in nature and take a long time to develop. They are linked to aging and affluence and have replaced infectious diseases and malnutrition as the dominant causes of ill-health and death in much of the world, including India. The major NCDs include cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. These account for 42 % of deaths in India. Some of the risk factors associated with NCDs are aging, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive use of alcohol and excess weight.

The burden of NCDs shifted to the older segments of population ( 60 years), highest prevalence being amongst to the oldest men and women ( 80 years+), with higher prevalence among women.

In sharp contrast to women who recorded a significant rise, overall prevalence of NCDs among men fell significantly during 2004-14, based on the National Sample Survey data for India. Men accounted for the majority in 2004, but women did so in 2014. The majority of NCD cases were in the rural areas for both men and women. However, the prevalence among urban women was higher than among urban men in 2014.

There was a significant affluence gradient to prevalence of NCDs among men, with a sharp increase in the prevalence from the lowest expenditure quintile to the highest in 2004. This is similar to what women experienced. A similar pattern is reproduced among both men and women in 2014, but with one reversal. While the prevalence among the most affluent men was higher than among the most affluent women in 2004, the latter recorded a higher prevalence ten years later, in 2014.

Raghav Gaiha

An important issue is whether higher vulnerability of women to NCDs manifests in greater access to good quality healthcare. To assess this, we rely on the India Human Development Survey 2015. To assess the quality of health care, we distinguish between two healthcare providers: public hospitals/doctors and private hospitals/doctors. More respondents rank private healthcare providers higher in quality than public providers. Another proximate indicator of quality is location of healthcare facilities. Quality of treatment received at home and in the same village is often inferior to treatment received in another village/town/district. The point to note is that a village may or may not have a primary healthcare centre but towns and districts are much better equipped with healthcare facilities for specialized treatment of NCDs. So location is another predictor of quality of healthcare.

Public providers were chosen by just under one-third of old women suffering from at least one NCD. In a striking contrast, large majorities –about two-thirds- depended on private providers (excluding traditional faith healers) in 2012. Similar proportions are reproduced for old men. So on this quality criterion, there was little difference between old men and women.

But the distance travelled by women and men reveals a contrast.

Large shares of old women, about 45 %, suffering from at least 1 NCD had their first treatment at home and in the same village. The majority, about 55 %, travelled to another village/town/district. Large shares of men suffering from 1 NCD, about 40 %- were treated at home and in the same village while the majority, about 58 %-travelled to another village/town/district.

From this perspective, the fact that larger shares of women received treatment at home and in the same village than men with a chronic NCD suggests that women had lower access to costlier and more specialized treatment despite their greater vulnerability to NCDs; however, the difference between men and women in their reliance on private providers is not significant.

In brief, while women are more prone to NCDs, their access to costlier and more specialized healthcare is lower than that of men. So the evidence favoring discrimination against women in good quality healthcare is limited but suggestive of a bias.

Social and family norms that restrict women’s access to health care are not as rigid as generally believed. Greater awareness of equity and better recognition of women’s contribution to household and social welfare could enhance their access to health care. Besides, outside employment options for women with some bargaining power (eg, high school education) could reinforce their autonomy.

(Farhana Haque-Rahman, a journalist and communications expert, is a former senior United Nations official and Raghav Gaiha is Visiting Scholar, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania and (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England).

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/discrimination-women-healthcare-india/feed/0Women in Politics: Adornments and Witcheshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/women-politics-adornments-witches/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=women-politics-adornments-witches
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/women-politics-adornments-witches/#respondWed, 04 Sep 2019 17:09:57 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163108Some world leaders try to prove their alpha male status by presenting attractive and submissive wives as tokens won in virile scrambles with other potent stags. A recent example of such puerile machismo was exposed in a twitter battle between the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his French equivalent Emmanuel Macron. Since taking office in […]

Some world leaders try to prove their alpha male status by presenting attractive and submissive wives as tokens won in virile scrambles with other potent stags. A recent example of such puerile machismo was exposed in a twitter battle between the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his French equivalent Emmanuel Macron. Since taking office in January, Mr Bolsonaro has railed against what he considered to be foreign meddling in Brazilian environmental politics. Wild fires raging in the Amazonian rain forest have generally been blamed on a rampant deforestation said to be endorsed by Bolsonaro´s regime. Emmanuel Macron tweeted a photo of burning Amazonian forestland with the comment: ”Our house is burning. Literally.” Bolsonaro reacted immediately and accused Macron of supporting an international alliance intending to take control over Amazonia while treating Brazil like a ”colony”. Bolsonaro twittered:

We cannot accept French President Macron´s improper and wanton attacks on the Amazon, nor can we accept that he disguises his intentions. 1

Some days later, Bolsonaro expressed approval of a Facebook-posting by one of his supporters. It presented an unflattering photo of France´s First Lady, mocking her appearance and comparing her unfavourably to Brazil’s First Lady. The post declared: ”Now you understand why Macron is persecuting Bolsonaro” indicating that Brigitte Macron is not as attractive as Michelle Bolsonaro, who is 28 years younger than Brigitte. Emmanuel Macron is 24 years younger than his wife and in the opinion of chauvinist males this makes him less macho than Jair Bolsonaro who has a wife that is 27 years younger than him. Bolsonaro replied to his Facebook fan: ”Do not humilate the guy, ha, ha,” while Macron retorted by stating that Bolsonaro had been ”extremely disrespectful” to his wife, adding that:

It’s sad, it’s sad first of all for him and for Brazilians. Brazilian women are probably feeling ashamed of their president. Since I have a lot of esteem and respect for the people of Brazil, I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the job. 2

Unfortunately, I doubt that Bolsonaro´s fans had been offended by their president´s behaviour. It is common, not only in Brazil, that people confuse competent leadership with displays of masculinity. A macho man may in political propaganda be depicted as a guarantee for strength and security, while female leaders may, due to their gender, be presented as less determined and accordingly unfit for the presidency, defined as the most masculine institution of all.

The recent U.S. presidential election was by many viewed as a battle between manhood and femininity, where opponents to Hillary either judged her as a proponent of ”feminine traits” making her weak and unfit for office, or as a menacing ”mannish”, maybe even lesbian lady who threatened male dominance and masculinity.

The mix-up of masculinity with politics means that women candidates to influential positions often are forced to navigate an assumed ”masculine deficit” of strength and dedication by excessively exhibit willpower, vigour and toughness, displaying ”hawkish” attitudes, while downplaying their roles as mothers and/or wives, altering their vocabulary and lower the tone of their voices. This while female partners of male contenders are expected to display beauty and youthfulness, as well as an unquestionable loyalty to the virile men they ”belong” to.

To perceive strong women leaders as imbued with ”manly” traits appears to be quite common. The future Israeli prime minister Golda Meir wrote in her memoris that when she in 1956 became foreign minister in Ben-Gurion´s government a story – which as far as I know, is all it was – went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as ‘the only man’ in his cabinet. What amused me about it was that obviously he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government! 3

However, such statements did not mean that Meir was a feminist. In 1973, she told Oriana Fallaci: ”Those nuts that burn their bras and walk around all disheveled and hate men? They’re crazy. Crazy.” 4 Golda Meir was often called The Iron Lady, as the strong-willed and outspoken Otto von Bismarck, who in his lifetime was considered to be the epitome of Prussian manhood was called The Iron Chancellor. British prime minster Margaret Thatcher was also labelled The Iron Lady. She has been described as uniting a ”dual nature of masculine and feminine imagery” 5 radiating ”feminine” housekeeping qualities, combined with aspects of a hard, masculine warrior and leader.

Contrary to what is generally the case of male leaders, women´s qualities tend to be connected with their dress and looks. Mrs. Thatcher kept her hair swept back from her face, giving her hairdo the impression of a helmet. She wore earrings and a necklace of pearls – not any frivolous diamonds, often wore gloves and almost always carried with her a black, square handbag, thus creating the image of a decisive and serious woman, not sexy or glamorous, but self-assured and effective. An appearance that occasionally created fear and insecurity among male opponents, like the French president Jaques Chirac who once famously exclaimed: ”What more does this housewife want from me? My balls on a tray?”, or Labour politician Tony Banks who in 1997 in a sexist manner described Thatcher as behaving ”with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor.”

A woman who through her manner and dress does not emit feelings of control and self-assurance, but adaptability, submission and accessibility may not be taken seriously and thus not be accepted as a leader. This might be the reason to why several strong and influential women leaders seem to cultivate a persona that does not make them appear as excessively feminine or sexy. The powerful Indian prime minster Indira Gandhi once declared:

I do not behave like a woman. The ”lack of sex” in me partly accounts for this. When I think of how other women behave, I realise that it is the lack of sex and with it a lack of woman’s wiles, on which most men base their views on me. 6

This reminds of the image Angela Merkel appears to cultivate – a political style transmitting a sharp sense of power, a scientist´s strict devotion to data projecting effectiveness and leadership qualities. Vogue has described the German chancellor as a short matronly woman […] wearing her signature black trousers and sensible walking shoes. 7

The same article characterised Merkel as a courageous and strong woman, for example by describing a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2007 when the Russian president had allowed his huge Labrador to enter the room, well aware that the German chancellor since her early childhood is traumatized by dogs after having been severely mauled by one of them.

Her aides were furious with the Russian, but she was not. ´I understand why he has to do this,´ she said, ´to prove he’s a man. He’s afraid of his own weakness.´ What Putin and other alpha-male politicians often miss is that Angela Merkel may be afraid of dogs, but she is not afraid of men. 8

It may be denied that male and female roles remain an important part of human power games, though I assume Merkel was right about Putin´s behaviour – it was based on fear. Fear of losing a mask of a virile masculinity, something which also is apparent in the ridiculous discourses of male leaders like Bolsonaro and Trump, who brag about their beautiful and submissive wives, whom they display as hunting trophies conquered in competition with other alpha males.

At the same time they show contempt for female adversaries. Jair Bolsonero told a female congress woman: “I’m not going to rape you, because you’re very ugly”. Appalling misogynist language is also a trademark of Donald Trump who labels leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Meghan Markle and Mette Fredriksen as ”nasty” women, calls his one-time aide Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth ”that dog”, the actress Rosie O´Donell a ”pig”, and famously stated that when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly critizised him she had ”blood coming out of her wherever” and that the political commentator Mika Brzezinski was ”bleeding badly from a face lift”. Unfortunately, these are just a few examples of a misogynist stance that still is evident within a global political discourse that deny women the right of being respected as equals to men. Several world leaders present their female partners as adornments to their power display, at the same time as they fear and attack female opponents, accusing them of having transgressed traditional boundaries of ”womanhood” to become ”hags and witches” who constitute a threat to male dominance.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/women-politics-adornments-witches/feed/0Central Asia Has Always Been Important for Europehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/central-asia-always-important-europe/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=central-asia-always-important-europe
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/central-asia-always-important-europe/#respondTue, 03 Sep 2019 11:14:23 +0000Peter Burianhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163083In an interview* with Peter Burian, the current EU Special Representative for Central Asia.

The EU has presented a new strategy for Central Asia. The first one has been adopted in 2007 and revised in 2015. Where do you see improvements?

Our new Strategy will aim to focus future EU action in the region on two key priorities. Firstly, we want to be partners for resilience. We want to strengthen the capacity of Central Asian states and societies to overcome internal and external shocks and enhance their ability to embrace reform.

This should translate into closer cooperation on human rights and the rule of law. This will also imply closer cooperation in security, including counter-radicalisation and counterterrorism, but also new areas such as hybrid threats and cyber-security. We also want to cooperate with the countries of the region to turn environmental challenges into opportunities.

Secondly, we want to step up our cooperation to support economic modernisation, and there is a lot the EU can do to support the development of a stronger and competitive job-generating private sector in the region.

We should also cooperate more closely to improve the climate for investment and the EU remains a leading supporter of the accession of Central Asian states to the WTO.

Peter Burian

Where do the EU’s interests lie when it comes to Central Asia?

Central Asia has always been important for Europe: for its history, for its culture and for its role in connecting East and West. Now Central Asia is regaining its historic role as a gateway between Europe and Asia.

Central Asia is a young and growing market with untapped potential for trade and transport, but it also represents an important element of our energy security. EU has a strong interest that Central Asia develops as a peaceful, resilient and more closely interconnected economic and political space.

The region is of significant importance for the EU also in terms of security. Neighbouring with Afghanistan, the region shares many challenges starting from illicit drug trafficking and irregular migration and ending with threats of violent extremism and terrorism.

When facing these threats, we are in one boat. And from this point of view, Central Asia is even a closer neighbour of the EU than it seems. In case of any major security crisis in the region, the EU will be one of the first to face the consequences.

Besides Brexit and domestic conflicts, we see that the eroding transatlantic relationship remains high on the EU’s agenda. How much attention can Central Asia therefore expect in the upcoming years?

I believe our member states and EU institutions helped me to answer your question by adopting the new EU Strategy on Central Asia, reconfirming the long-term commitment to security and stability of the region.

I dare to say that also thanks to EU’s contribution and support for sustainable development in the past quarter of a century the region managed to preserve a large degree of stability and countries of Central Asia strengthened their statehood, identity and sovereignty.

In the light of existing challenges, the region is facing this support will be needed in the foreseeable future. It is in our interest to keep the attention to Central Asia and help to strengthen its resilience.

I believe that with our rather modest investments into human capacity building, education, job creation and strengthening the rule of law and good governance it is possible to create conditions for utilizing the potential of the region and prevent negative tendencies to materialize into major threats to stability of Central Asia.

Even when you look to the recent past when the EU member states were deciding on budgetary allocations for Central Asia’s regional MIP for 2014-2020 seven years ago you would see that the EU managed to increase the funding for implementation of various regional and bilateral projects in Central Asia by more than 50 per cent.

A meeting of Central Asian states. Credit: UN

With Russia and China two geopolitical heavyweights are very active in Central Asia. In contrast, how’s the EU perceived as an actor in the region?

One of the reasons the Central Asian countries are seeking a closer partnership with the EU is their natural interest to diversify their choices and options. Being located between such big political, economic and security players as China and Russia, our Central Asian partners see the EU as a balancing power in the regional equation.

From our part, we want to forge a stronger, modern and non-exclusive partnership with the region so that it develops as an area of cooperation and connectivity rather than competition and rivalry.

The EU’s partnership with the region is not directed against anyone. The Central Asians appreciate our ability to engage on a non-exclusive basis without imposing binary choices. The EU does not aim to be a “Great Game” player on a “Grand Chessboard” but rather a reliable and committed partner for the region.

We remain open for cooperation and synergies with everyone, including China and Russia, based on full transparency and fully respecting the Central Asian states’ ownership and sovereignty.

The increasing indebtedness of countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Chinese creditors makes the population more and more concerned about their countries’ sovereignty. What can the EU do concretely to offer less developed countries a real alternative?

The EU is providing to the countries of Central Asia a real alternative. EU cooperation with the region already amounts to over €1bn through both bilateral and regional envelopes. Together with other instruments this amount is even higher – around €2bn.

To fulfil the economic potential, there is the need for something more than big infrastructure projects or trains delivering goods that only run through these countries. There is a need to have real, long-term investments that bring benefits to local communities, based on sustainable and long-standing solutions.

We also share a mutual interest in developing and strengthening connections between Europe and Central Asia, whether that is transport links, digital infrastructure, energy networks, or contacts between people. This could create new jobs, promote innovation and modernisation, which allows Central Asia avoiding the debt trap and the trap of poor quality projects.

But at the same time the connectivity for us is not and should never be about creating spheres of influence. For us, connectivity always will be rather focussed on creating opportunities for everyone.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/central-asia-always-important-europe/feed/0Festival Pays Tribute to Singer, Civil-Rights Icon Nina Simonehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/festival-pays-tribute-singer-civil-rights-icon-nina-simone/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=festival-pays-tribute-singer-civil-rights-icon-nina-simone
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/festival-pays-tribute-singer-civil-rights-icon-nina-simone/#respondThu, 29 Aug 2019 16:20:43 +0000A. D. McKenziehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163042It must be a daunting prospect to sing songs made famous by the incomparable Nina Simone, but performers Ledisi and Lisa Fischer brought their individual style to a BBC Proms concert in London, honouring Simone and gaining admiration for their own talent. The show, “Mississippi Goddam: A Homage to Nina Simone”, paid tribute to the […]

It must be a daunting prospect to sing songs made famous by the incomparable Nina Simone, but performers Ledisi and Lisa Fischer brought their individual style to a BBC Proms concert in London, honouring Simone and gaining admiration for their own talent.

The show, “Mississippi Goddam: A Homage to Nina Simone”, paid tribute to the singer, pianist and civil rights campaigner – a “towering musical figure” – at the Royal Albert Hall on Aug. 21, more than 16 years after Simone died in her sleep in southern France at the age of 70.

This was a celebration to recognise her “unique contribution to music history”, according to the Proms, an annual summer festival of classical music that also features genres “outside the traditional classical repertoire”.

The concert’s title refers to the song that marked a turning point in Simone’s career, when she composed it in fury and grief following the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, and the deaths of four African-American girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

Performing the song at the tribute, New Orleans-born vocalist Ledisi held nothing back. She put all the anger and anguish that the lyrics required into her rendition, creating one of the high points of the concert.

The composition stood out particularly because of the contrast between the lyrics and the rhythm, and Ledisi – who’s also an actress and writer – emphasized this disparity. While the “tune has an almost fun-filled, pulsating vibe” (as conductor Jules Buckley put it in his written introduction to the show), the message itself is uncompromising.

“It speaks of murder, of dashed dreams and severe inequality, and it shattered the assumption that African-Americans would patiently use the legislative process to seek political rights,” Buckley wrote. Listeners got the full context, and they were reminded that some things have not changed much in the United States.

Conducting the Metropole Orkest, whose members played superbly, Buckley said that in putting together the programme he wanted to shine a light not only on Simone’s hits but also on a “few genius and lesser-known songs”. With the sold-out concert, he and the performers succeeded in providing the audience a clear idea of the range of Simone’s oeuvre.

The concert began with an instrumental version of “African Mailman” and segued into “Sinnerman”, the soulful track about the “wrongdoer who unsuccessfully seeks shelter from a rock, the river and the sea, and ultimately makes a direct appeal to God”, to quote Alyn Shipman, the author of A New History of Jazz who compiled the programme notes.

The orchestral introduction paved the way for Lisa Fischer’s arresting entrance. With her shaved head and flowing black outfit, she moved across the stage, singing “Plain Gold Ring” in her inimitable voice, evoking the image of an operatic monk. The two-time Grammy winner displayed the genre-crossing versatility for which she has become known, using her voice like a musical instrument and hitting unexpected lows before again going high. The audience loved it.

Fischer introduced Ledisi, who wore a scarlet gown (before changing to an African dress after the intermission), and the two women then took turns singing Simone’s repertoire, expressing love for the icon as well as appreciation for each other’s performances.

Then there was, of course, “Mississippi Goddam”, which followed a haunting, syncopated “Dambala”, a song made famous by Bahamian musician Tony McKay aka Exuma, who inspired Simone. Fischer performed “Dambala” with the requisite mysticism, getting listeners to shake to the beat.

Back-up vocalists LaSharVu, comprising three powerhouse singers, also contributed to the energy and success of the concert. Two of them joined Ledisi and Fischer for an outstanding and moving presentation of “Four Women” – Simone’s 1966 song about the lives of four African-American women that has become an essential part of her artistic legacy.

For other songs, LaSharVu teamed up with the orchestra to provide “percussive accompaniment” through clapping, and the orchestra’s skill on moving from reggae (“Baltimore”) to gospel underpinned the overall triumph of the show.

The concert ended with an encore, as Fischer and Ledisi performed “Feeling Good” to a standing ovation, and to comments of “fantastic”, “fabulous”, “amazing” and other superlatives.

The show was not the only part of the homage to Simone. Earlier in the day, the BBC’s “Proms Plus Talk” programme had featured a discussion of the “life, work and legacy” of the singer, with poet Zena Edwards and singer-musician Ayanna Witter-Johnson interviewed by journalist Kevin Le Gendre, author of Don’t Stop The Carnival: Black Music In Britain.

During this free public event, held at Imperial College Union, the three spoke of the impact Simone has had on their work and recalled her style and performances. They also discussed the abuse she suffered from her second husband and the painful relationship she had with her only daughter, Lisa, whom Simone in turn physically abused.

Witter-Johnson said that Simone had inspired her to feel empowered in performing different genres, so that she could sing and play music across various styles. “Her courage, outstanding musicianship and love of her heritage will always be a continual source of inspiration,” she said later.

In response to a comment from an audience member, a publisher, that Simone had been an extremely “difficult” person, Edwards stressed that Simone had been a “genius” and could be expected to not have an easy personality. Le Gendre meanwhile pointed to the difficulties Simone herself had experienced, with relationships, record companies, and the American establishment, especially after she began defending civil rights.

In an email interview after the tribute, Le Gendre said Simone’s music had had a “profound effect” on him throughout his life.

“There are so many anthems that she recorded it is difficult to know where to start, but a song like ‘Four Women’ can still move me to tears because it is such an unflinchingly honest depiction of the black condition that African-Americans, African-Caribbeans and black Britons can easily relate to,” he said.

“The way she broaches the very real historical issues of rape on a plantation, girls forced into prostitution and the internal battles based on skin shade affected me a great deal because, having lived in the West Indies and the UK and visited America several times, I know that what she is talking about is simply the truth,” he added.

“There is a war within the race as well as between the races, and we will only move beyond self-destruction if we firstly recognise these painful facts. I continue to be inspired by her ability to ‘keep it real’ as well as her great musicianship. Above all else she has made me think, as well as listen and dance.”

The BBC Proms classical music festival runs until Sept. 14 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A concert on Aug. 29 features “Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music”, with conductor Peter Edwards, pianist Monty Alexander and tap dancer Annette Walker.

(This article is published by permission of Southern World Arts News – SWAN. You can follow the writer on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale)

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/festival-pays-tribute-singer-civil-rights-icon-nina-simone/feed/0G7 Leaders Urged to Promote Gender Empowermenthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/g7-leaders-urged-promote-gender-empowerment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=g7-leaders-urged-promote-gender-empowerment
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/g7-leaders-urged-promote-gender-empowerment/#respondFri, 23 Aug 2019 06:46:59 +0000Thalif Deenhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162944As leaders of the seven major industrialised nations (G7) meet in the coastal seatown of Biarritz in the south west of France, one of the world’s leading women’s organisations is calling for the protection and advancement of women worldwide. Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver, and a two-time member of both G7 Gender Equality Advisory […]

As leaders of the seven major industrialised nations (G7) meet in the coastal seatown of Biarritz in the south west of France, one of the world’s leading women’s organisations is calling for the protection and advancement of women worldwide.

Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver, and a two-time member of both G7 Gender Equality Advisory Councils (GEAC), is delivering a strong, gender-inspired message to the leaders: “Firstly, ditch the gender discriminatory laws you have on your books. Secondly, push progressive ones.”

“Thirdly, invest specifically in implementation of progressive laws, and also invest in women’s and civil society organisations (CSOs) that work every day to drive progress. And lastly, monitor, measure and be ready to be held to your promises.”

The G7 countries, comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States, plus the European Union (EU), are holding their 45th annual meeting in France, August 24-26.

Women currently comprise nearly 50 percent of the global population of 7.7 billion people while the G7 accounts for more than 58 percent of the world’snet wealth..

Iversen,whose organisation is described asa leading global advocate for the health, rights and wellbeing of girls and women, has also brought together diverse voices and interests to drive progress for gender equality, with a particular focus on maternal, sexual, and reproductive health and rights.

In an interview with IPS, Iversen said that within the four focus areas, Women Deliver has identified 79 examples of laws and policies that advance gender equality, drawn from different regions of the world.

While this list is not comprehensive, she said, the examples show that progress is possible and is, in fact, happening.

“We call on the G7 and other world leaders to take these as inspiration, and act before they meet again in 2020, both at the G7 but also at the global Generation Equality Summit to be held in Mexico and France respectively.”

In Canada, abortion is allowed by law without specifications on gestational limits, it is available to women of any age, and it is covered by insurance in hospitals.

Colombia has compulsory sex education with curriculum tailored to the students’ age. Paraguay provides contraception free of charge and without an age restriction.

In India, a 2005 law reforms the discriminatory inheritance practices and establishes equality in land inheritance between unmarried girls and unmarried boys.

And in Rwanda, beginning 2010, at least 30% of parliamentary candidates had to be women – and today more than 60% actually are.

IPS:Can you tell us what the Gender Equality Advisory Council is, and what role it plays at the G7?

IVERSEN: The G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council was created by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promote gender equality as an issue that deserves the attention of the G7, along with economic development, trade, technology and everything else that heads of state work on. This was last year when Canada held the presidency of the G7.

I guess we did a pretty good job since French President Emmanuel Macron right away said that he was going to continue the idea under France’s presidency. He formed his own at the beginning of the year, and I and a couple of others were asked to continue.

Both independent Councils have brought together activists and advocates, Nobel prizewinners, UN, civil society and business leaders, and a diverse group of people with different perspectives and expertise to share—ranging from education, gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment, women’s health, indigenous rights, youth engagement, technology, climate change, LGBTQI issues, and male engagement.

Trudeau, Macron and others know that leaders must invest in politically and economically in gender equality to create a healthier, wealthier, more productive and more peaceful world. Our role has been to show the G7 leaders what they need to do to drive progress.

What has been exciting and gratifying about these Councils is that it has really changed the conversation on gender equality. I mean, I talk about gender equality all the time, the members of the Council’s talk about it…but not everybody does. But more and more now do, and we see the discussions being much more prominent – and substantial – in governments, businesses, and in society at large.

IPS: You have served on the 2018 inaugural GEAC and now this one. Can you tell us about the experience of working with two different groups?

IVERSEN: I’m so proud of the work of both Councils and the fact that the various issues related to gender equality have been elevated to the global stage in such a big way.

Prime Minister Trudeau really went out on a limb. It seems a little crazy to say that advising G7 leaders on how to bring about gender equality was a radical idea in 2018. And yet it somewhat was.

We got a lot of leeway, so we didn’t just say – these are things that are good for women and these are things that are bad for women. We were able to show how to make gender inequality history, and make the case that gender is cross-cutting and countries must put a gender lens to their priority areas —the economy, the climate, technology, security, health, education, whatever. The prime minister insisted that we be truly independent, and that we were welcome to criticise Canada, where they were not doing well enough.

President Macron formed a bigger council to expand the work, but also to go deeper, and we have come up with specific recommendations to drive gender equality from a legal perspective. What this council is recommending is for governments to ditch discriminatory laws, push for progressive laws in their place, and put these priorities into the national budget.

IPS: How did you establish priorities for the GEAC and what was the process like?

IVERSEN: It has been fascinating. The work takes time and consensus can be hard won but the process is also invigorating, because we all learn from each other, and because the results are a lot more powerful.

That’s exactly what the G7 needed: ideas, energy, and consolidated advice from a wide range of experts with different lived experiences. And done in a kind and collaborative manner. Gender equality is not a war, it is an investment where everybody wins.

In the 2018 Council, we outlined many, if not all, of the cross-cutting issues that need a gender lens in a report to the G7. This year we focus on what kind of legislation we could recommend. We honed in on reforms in four areas: Ending gender-based violence; ensuring that health and education are high quality, inclusive, and equitable; promoting women’s economic empowerment; and ensuring full gender equality in policies and public life.Investment in these areas would move the needle on gender equality.

IPS:What has been the impact of GEAC in 2018 and what do you hope to achieve this year?

IVERSEN : Prime Minister Trudeau’s creation of an independent Gender Equality Advisory Council put the issues of gender equality on par with the other economic and social issues at the 2018 G7. And President Macron saw the impact that elevating gender equality had, and embraced the idea of establishing his own council.

Ideally, the G7 will remain a platform to promote gender equality and all the economic, political, and social benefits that result from it. But we want all governments to join this work. Not just because it’s the right thing to do but because doing so is better for countries politically, economically, and socially.

IPS: Are commitments enough? How do you hold governments accountable for their commitments made at G7 to ensure tangible, sustainable outcomes?

IVERSEN: Words matter. But some words matter a little more in this context and those are the ones that are written into legislation. Promises are important but they are not enough and we know that.

We need action. But experience tells us we also need accountability. Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms show what is working and whether promises are kept. It gives governments opportunity to learn and adjust – and it gives civil society advocates arguments and information to hold governments accountable to their promises.

That is exactly why Women Deliver, UN Women, and OECD together with the Council have created a relatively simple – and affordable – accountability framework to accompany the Biarritz Package. Therefore, we’ve strongly encouraged France take the accountability framework and invest in it.

IPS:You mentioned civil society organisations. Can you tell us a bit more on what role civil society organisations can play?

IVERSEN: It is a good question and I will answer it – but then let’s also save some time and take a look to the future.

Civil society plays a crucial role when we talk about gender equality and about instituting legal and profound change. There are women-led organisations that focus on local issues and there are global NGOs that tackle a broad set of problems all over the world. And there’s everything in-between.

Let’s look to Ireland where women-focused organisations led the year-long campaign that finally legalised abortion. Let’s look to Uganda where civil society, not least youth advocates were instrumental in preventing the government from banning sexuality education. Let’s look to the MeToo, Time’s Up and Ni Una Mas movement in South America that is changing perceptions of women and apathy about gender-based violence. That is real fundamental change.

Big change comes when the different sectors band together – when government, private sector, the judiciary, civil society, and even the private sector finds common ground and push together. That is the point we are getting to regarding gender equality and that is why this G7 Summit is important and why the next year will be instrumental.

In addition, programs intended to serve young people are often designed without meaningful youth engagement, and so impact falls short. The ideas and experience of young people must be included in the design and implementation of all policies and programs designed to serve them.

2020 marks the beginning of the UN’s Decade of Progress on the SDGs. It is also the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on gender equality. It’s hard to remember now but that was revolutionary and we are looking for another big push on this road to gender equality – whether in relation to women in leadership and the economy, health, or education. There are big plans for activities in 2020 and Women Deliver is part of that.

The call for a more gender equal world is echoing throughout the world. And the notion that a gender equal world is a healthier, wealthier, more peaceful and a BETTER world is gaining traction. The genie is out of the bottle, and we are not going backwards.

Throughout my ten years working in international development and climate policy, I’ve mostly heard colleagues talk about the private sector as if it was this intangible, multifaceted medusa with its own business lingo that is impossible for us policy experts to tackle: “the ‘private sector’ needs a return on investment in order to act on climate” or “the ‘private sector’ does not have the right incentives, but we need ‘private’ capital to solve this crisis”

First, we need to untangle whowe are talking about when we refer to “the private sector”. Are we talking about multinational corporations, wealthy investors, banks, entrepreneurs?

Secondly, unless we approach these actors with the problem, invite them to the discussion table, and hear them out, we will certainly never know the best way to get their interests aligned with climate solutions.

On the other hand, UN organisation and multilateral climate and environment funds interact almost entirely with public institutions and governments. So, when it comes to raising the bar on contributions to the Paris Agreement, climate change adaptation, and accessing climate finance, it seems the ball falls into the governments’ court.

We hear the usual refrain: “Governments need to mainstream climate risk into development policies” or “Governments need to act” or “Heads of State need to meet to raise ambition on NDCs [ Nationally Determined Contributions that countries made to the Paris Agreement]”

But will Government officials shaking hands and signing project proposals magically solve the climate crisis?

Here’s an idea: create a robust business case – whether it is by showing returns on investments or economic losses due to inaction – for profit-seeking actors to financially back up an NDC or National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and activate most of the domestic heavy-lifting that is needed to make these plans a reality.

In Latin America, we see an urgent need for public-private collaboration regarding action on climate change. As far as climate justice goes, the region is on par with most African and Asian peers: their contribution to global warming is less than that of USA and Europe.

However, the mega-biodiverse region remains highly vulnerable to climate change, economic growth is fuelling more carbon emissions, and the need for climate-resilient development is vital.

Despite a growing economy, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Latin America is growing at a slower rate than previously anticipated and well below growth rates of other regions, largely due to tightening of global financial conditions and lower commodity prices.

Low investment in human capital and entrepreneurship means economic inequality and a vulnerable middle class continues to be an issue in the region, a region that is already over-dependent on natural resources.

This socio-economic situation is further exacerbated by climate change related catastrophic events, changes in rainfall patterns and in temperatures. It is projected that a temperature rise of 2.5°C could have a negative impact on the Latin American GDP of 1.5 to 5 percent.

To make matters worse, grant and donor funding from multilateral climate and environmental finance sources are on a downward trajectory in the region, partly due to its “middle income” status; meaning governments are expected to use non-grant instruments to mitigate emissions or adapt to climate change.

The bleak reality is that we can no longer rely on grant-funded projects to cut down emissions or urgently adapt to the already devastating effects of the climate crisis.

But, remember the “private sector”? What is the contribution of wealthy investors, small entrepreneurs, and banks to this puzzle? Should they care? Is the region ready?

The good news in Latin America is that opportunities for private capital investment, which has significantly grown in recent years (for example, venture capital investment jumped from US $500M in 2016 to US $2 Billion in 2018 in the region) is at an all-time high.

There is also a growing sense of business opportunity amongst regional, national and private banks, investors, and entrepreneurs who understand the implications of climate risks in their value chains, operations, and portfolios.

Impact investors are financing reforestation initiatives in Mexico and climate-resilient productive landscapes in Honduras. Banks are developing innovative and flexible financial instruments to support small producers in rural Costa Rica protect their water resources through ecosystem-based adaptation.

Honey and cocoa cooperatives in Guatemala have established climate-resilient value chains by understanding the outstanding risks of climate change to their businesses. UNDP has served as a connector for these partnerships and supported on-the-ground projects which are the vehicles for these fascinating initiatives.

Taking advantage of the NDC and NAP processes, policy makers are approaching businesses, corporations and investors to see how they can contribute to finance the implementation of such plans.

Such is the case of Uruguay, Ecuador and Chile, where UNDP and its partners – including Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Green Climate Fund (GCF) — have been instrumental.

With the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week (concluding August 23), including the Regional NDC Dialogues organised by UNDP in partnership with UNFCCC, we have another opportunity to welcome the private sector to the discussion table.

Regional and national banks, NGOs, think-tanks and consulting firms will all convene in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, along with government representatives from across the region, to find ways of working together to fight climate change.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/solving-climate-crisis-beyond-governments/feed/0The Role of Women’s Organisations in Crisis-Settingshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/role-womens-organisations-crisis-settings/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=role-womens-organisations-crisis-settings
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/role-womens-organisations-crisis-settings/#respondMon, 19 Aug 2019 07:51:14 +0000Marcy Hershhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162894Marcy Hersh, is the Senior Manager of Humanitarian Advocacy at Women Deliver & Cecilia Chami is the Programs Director of Lebanon Family Planning Association for Development and Family Empowerment (LFPADE).

World Humanitarian Day also coincides with a special milestone for LFPADE: today, August 19, marks their 50th anniversary as the first and oldest family planning organisation in Lebanon.

Drawing from LFPADE’s five decades of experience, Chami highlights the power of women-focused CSOs, and what the world can do to help continue their vital work.

Excerpts from the interview:

HERSH: Women make up a large part of LFPADE’s team, including in leadership positions and as direct service providers. How does having strong women on your team help advance LFPADE’s work and mission?

CHAMI:LFPADE works to empower women in all aspects of their lives to achieve gender equality – so having strong women on our team is essential. Women are the best experts on our lives, so we understand what women in our communities need, can relate to the challenges they face, and appreciate the quality of services they deserve.

For example, we know from experience that access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services improves lives and futures of girls, women, and their whole communities. So, while these services might be sidelined in many traditional humanitarian responses, we prioritise a woman’s ability to control her fertility at the core of all our work.

As women from Lebanon, we also know the contexts and entry points to deliver services most effectively. We work with anyone who influences the lives of girls and women – including boys, men, community leaders, and mothers-in-law – to help girls and women make more autonomous decisions about their lives and bodies. We are only able to form these partnerships because communities know us, trust us, and believe in us.

HERSH: What can the world do to better support women and women-focused organisations in humanitarian action?

CHAMI: International actors wield so much power in humanitarian action – and it’s time they share more of that power with women-focused CSOs.

First, international organisations must work hand-in-hand with women-focused CSOs as equal partners, designing programs together that really respond to the needs of girls and women in our communities.

Often, local and national organisations like LFPADE are only seen as implementing partners that can execute the projects envisioned by foreigners. We bring grassroots expertise and community voices to the table – so we must actually be engaged at the outset.

Resources are key to maximising our impact, too. We often rely on unreliable funding streams and short-term grants to sustain them, which makes it very hard for us to work. Long-term investment in women-focused CSOs is the fuel we need to achieve results that have a real impact.

HERSH: LFPADE has worked to provide SRH services to women throughout Lebanon for 50 years, including Palestinian and Syrian women. When you reflect on the organisation’s history, what have been some of the biggest successes and lessons learned?

CHAMI: The biggest success of LFPADE was pushing for the removal of regressive laws which forbade talking about family planning and contraceptives in Lebanon. By doing so, we made it possible for us – and other women-focused organisations across the country – to advocate for family planning and the sale of essential contraceptives. This also made it possible for the government ministries to begin to implement SRH programs nationwide.

Another success was our ability to mobilise quickly to ensure that refugee responses prioritise SRH services for all girls and women. We worked with the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA) to provide their medical and paramedical staff with training on how to provide these services in their clinics.

Since 2013, we have also dedicated a large part of our efforts to meeting the needs of Syrian refugees who have fled from home – and to date have reached over 30,000 Syrian men, women, and children with SRH awareness campaigns and programs.

One big lesson learned throughout all these successes is that girls and women must be included in the design of all projects for them. When we take the time to speak with girls and women about their needs and challenges at the outset, we be sure to design programs to fit their realities.

HERSH: You work you do is often difficult and tiring – but you continue to be an inspiring change-maker in Lebanon. What motivates you to continue your important work as a Program Director for LFPADE, even during the most challenging times?

CHAMI: What motivates me to continue working is the impact our programs are achieving. When I meet and talk to girls and women, I see firsthand how our efforts improve their lives and the lives of their children.

One quote that will always stay with me comes from a woman who attended a course LFPADE runs on women’s leadership: “You gave us self-confidence and knowledge, and we know now that we too can make a difference.” When every woman in Lebanon realises their power to make a change, my job will be done.

Marcy Hersh, is the Senior Manager of Humanitarian Advocacy at Women Deliver & Cecilia Chami is the Programs Director of Lebanon Family Planning Association for Development and Family Empowerment (LFPADE).

The special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on climate and land, launched last week, makes it clear that without drastic changes in land use, agriculture and human diets, we will fall significantly short of targets to hold global temperature rise below 1.5°C.

Agriculture and food systems are identified as they key drivers of land degradation and desertification, with carbon emissions and extractive activities affecting 75 per cent of the Earth’s land surface. Now, as forests, food, and farming become the next frontier in the climate emergency, there is an urgent need to accelerate creative and effective solutions.

Each Beacons of Hope is disrupting the status quo and regenerating landscapes, enhancing livelihoods, restoring people’s health and wellbeing, reconnecting with Indigenous and cultural knowledge, and more, in order to achieve a resilient food future.

There is an opportunity to learn from these initiatives, as well as apply those learnings to facilitate and accelerate more food systems transformations.

The report makes the case for why we must pinpoint the drivers of change and seize the opportunities they bring. Climate change is called out as the predominant overriding challenge facing Beacons of Hope and is identified as a key driver of change across food systems.

An awareness of the health impacts of current food systems and the desire to improve community health and well-being also emerged as important drivers of change across many Beacons of Hope. As well, migration and immigration – the movement of people from rural to urban areas, as well as across borders – was found to significantly impact agriculture and health outcomes.

Yet, though food systems are vulnerable and complex, this report makes clear that they can be transformed to provide the people- and nature-based climate solutions we urgently need to address a multitude of issues – from climate emergency, urbanization, and the need for healthier and more sustainable diets.

In Andhra Pradesh, India

In particular, the report details that we need to accelerate agroecological approaches as a way to achieve transformation with many Beacons of Hope putting agroecological principles at the core of their work and their vision of the future.

Take for example how the Climate Resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) initiative in Andhra Pradesh, India, promotes food resilience through traditional, chemical-free farming and agroecological processes and plans to scale from 180,000 farmers today to a massive 6 million by 2024.

Both these Beacons of Hope challenge the dominant narrative around food production that pressures national governments to privilege industrialized agriculture and foreign investment over local natural resource management through agroecology.

They also demonstrate that knowledge transfer and skills training, through farmer-to-farmer mentoring, is fundamental to not only building the capacity of farmers and communities over time, but to also challenge top-down approaches to reform and/or single-focused interventions that can cause unintended consequences.

As forests, food, and farming become the next frontier in the climate emergency, there is an urgent need to accelerate creative and effective solutions

Another of the Beacons of Hope – Agricultures Network (AN) is producing regional and global magazines that put farmers at the center of the development of agriculture, and thereby, is facilitating knowledge co-creation between farmer communities, researchers, civil society actors, and others.

Crucially, AN brings to life how sustainable food production also: reduces inequality; fosters healthy society, soil, and environment; and reduces youth unemployment.

Another key takeaway from the report is that new market mechanisms should be identified, developed, and supported by policy and practice. Environmental and social externalities should be internalized by policy and markets in order to balance the playing field on which initiatives addressing sustainability are currently disadvantaged.

This is something that was done, in part, at the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) in Zambia. Established in 2009, this Beacon of Hope channels market incentives to rural economies, promoting income generation, biodiversity conservation, and food security by training poachers to be farmers and farmers to be stewards of the land.

Now, thanks to this initiative, the farmers involved are able to grow their own food and create a livelihood outside of elephant hunting, which benefits the environment as well as the health of the smallholder farmers and their families.

Ultimately, there’s little doubt that we need systemic change, new policies, and a shift in power dynamics in order to realize a safe, resilient, and fair food future. We need to see systems-thinking in order to facilitate transformative processes in place-based, contextual ways.

Equally, we need to see long-term thinking, and creative partnerships and investment from across the private sector, civil society, and government committed to transforming food systems. Only then can we ensure that the negative externalities are minimized and positive benefits — economic, social, ecological, and cultural — are enhanced and properly valued.

The Beacons of Hope show us that transformation is not only possible, but is already happening. This creates space for hope, possibility, and opportunity through the groundswell of people transforming our food systems in beneficial, dynamic, and significant ways, through nature- and people-based solutions accelerating meaningful food systems transformations at this critical time.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/forests-food-farming-next-frontier-climate-emergency/feed/0Women Pastoralists Feel Heat of Climate Changehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/women-pastoralists-feel-heat-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=women-pastoralists-feel-heat-climate-change
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/women-pastoralists-feel-heat-climate-change/#respondWed, 14 Aug 2019 08:56:16 +0000Sharon Birch-Jeffreyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162862For many people, climate change is about shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, longer and more intense heatwaves, and other extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. But for women pastoralists—livestock farmers in the semi-arid lands of Kenya—climate change has forced drastic changes to everyday life, including long and sometimes treacherous journeys to get water. Faced with an […]

Members of the Samburu tribe in Kenya. Samburu women pastoralists are affected by climate change.

By Sharon Birch-Jeffrey, Africa RenewalNAIROBI, Aug 14 2019 (IPS)

For many people, climate change is about shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, longer and more intense heatwaves, and other extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. But for women pastoralists—livestock farmers in the semi-arid lands of Kenya—climate change has forced drastic changes to everyday life, including long and sometimes treacherous journeys to get water.

Faced with an increasingly dry climate, women pastoralists now must spend much more time searching for water. That takes time away from productive economic activities, reinforcing the cycle of poverty.

A marginalized group

“Women are the ones who fetch water and firewood. Women are the ones who prepare food. Women are the ones who take care of not just their own children but also the young ones of their animals as well,” Agnes Leina, a Kenyan human rights activist and pastoralist, told Africa Renewal.

Leina established the Il’Laramatak Community Concerns organisation in 2011, because women pastoralists have inadequate land rights, are excluded from community leadership and are often not involved in decision making, despite the responsibilities they shoulder.

This year, Leina was invited to the Commission on the Status of Women at UN headquarters in New York, an opportunity she used to promote the rights of the Maasai, seminomadic pastoralists of the Nilotic ethnic group in parts of northern, central and southern Kenya.

Climate change has made their situation worse, she says.

“Women are the ones who fetch water and firewood. Women are the ones who prepare food. Women are the ones who take care of not just their own children but also the young ones of their animals as well,” Leina’s organisation addresses the loss of earnings women incur due to climate change by creating programmes that teach them how to make and sell beads, mats, and milk products. It also helps foster girls’ resilience by giving them the tools to set goals for themselves.

She says it used to take her about 30 minutes to fetch 20 litres of water from a river not far from her mother’s home, which was hardly enough to wash clothes and utensils and take a bath. That was until the river started receding.

The time she spent fetching water increased to “one hour, then two hours because, of course, there was no water and so many of us lined up for the little that was available. Then suddenly it completely dried up.”

Now, she says, “You have to travel to another river, which is like one hour’s walk, to fetch water.”

As a result, many girls between ages 14 and 16 run the risk of being attacked by wild animals or becoming victims of sexual assault while searching for water. They have no time to do their homework and, for fear of being punished, they miss school, she explains.

Other girls, discouraged by these realities, “settle for a man in town who has water and then marry him,” Leina admits with regret.

Agnes Leina.

Climate change also increases the pressure for child marriages. In pastoralist communities, livestock is a status symbol. Losing cattle because the land is too arid for them to survive may compel a father to offer his young daughter’s hand in marriage in exchange for more cows as a bride price.

Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change. The UN Environment (UNE) projects that some countries’ yields from rain-fed agriculture will have been reduced by half by next year. Countries hard hit by land degradation and desertification include Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

“Most African women depend on rain-fed livelihood systems like farming and livestock keeping. Therefore, any shift in climate patterns has a significant impact on women, especially those living in rural areas,” concurs Fatmata Sessay, UN Women regional policy advisor on climate-smart agriculture for East and Southern Africa Region. UN Women’s mandate is to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Globally, nearly 200 million nomadic pastoralists make their livelihoods in remote and harsh environments where conventional farming is limited or not possible, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Glo.be, the online magazine of the Belgian Federal Public Service’s international development aid programme, reports that Kenyan pastoralists are responsible for up to 90% of the meat produced in East Africa. Kenya’s livestock sector contributes 12% to the country’s gross domestic product, according to the World Bank.

Therefore, a changing climate has serious implications for the country’s economy.

In 2014, Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, with support from the International Livestock Research Institute and the World Bank, began a livestock insurance programme for vulnerable pastoralists. That programme has provided some relief to women pastoralists.

Technology to the rescue

UN Women is also mobilizing efforts to secure land tenure for women. It is working with the Standard Bank of Africa to help African women overcome barriers in the agriculture sector such as providing access to credit.

Technology is key to saving the water that disappears after a torrential rainfall, says Leina. Windmill technology, for instance, could allow women to access water 300 feet underground. The snag, she explains, is that it’s priced out of the reach of women pastoralists. She hopes authorities can help.

Houses in some rural areas of Kenya have thatched roofs that cannot channel water to household water tanks in the way that zinc rooftops can. Commercial water trucks can fill up household tanks for a fee of up to $60 per tank, but most rural households cannot afford that much.

The situation for women pastoralists is grim, which is why Leina hopes raising awareness of how climate change is threatening their livelihoods may get increased attention—and support—of the Kenyan government and its international partners.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/women-pastoralists-feel-heat-climate-change/feed/0Mexican Women Use Sunlight Instead of Firewood or Gas to Cook Mealshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/mexican-women-use-sunlight-instead-firewood-gas-cook-meals/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mexican-women-use-sunlight-instead-firewood-gas-cook-meals
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/mexican-women-use-sunlight-instead-firewood-gas-cook-meals/#respondTue, 13 Aug 2019 21:56:35 +0000Emilio Godoyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162852Reyna Díaz cooks beans, chicken, pork and desserts in her solar cooker, which she sets up in the open courtyard of her home in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of this town in southwestern Mexico. “My family likes the way it cooks things. I use it almost every day, it has been a big […]

Reyna Díaz checks the marinated pork she is cooking in a solar cooker at her home in a poor neighbourhood of Vicente Guerrero, Villa de Zaachila municipality, in the southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The use of solar cookers has made is possible for 200 local women to save on fuel and stop using firewood, providing environmental and health benefits. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio GodoyVILLA DE ZAACHILA, Mexico, Aug 13 2019 (IPS)

Reyna Díaz cooks beans, chicken, pork and desserts in her solar cooker, which she sets up in the open courtyard of her home in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of this town in southwestern Mexico.

“My family likes the way it cooks things. I use it almost every day, it has been a big help to me,” Díaz told IPS as she mixed the ingredients for cochinita pibil, a traditional pork dish marinated with spices and achiote, a natural coloring.

She then placed the pot on the aluminum sheets of the cooker, which reflect the sunlight that heats the receptacle.

Before receiving the solar cooker in March, Díaz, who sells atole, a traditional hot Mexican drink based on corn or wheat dough, and is raising her son and daughter on her own, did not believe it was possible to cook with the sun’s rays."I learned while working with the local women. It was hard, like breaking stones; people knew nothing about it. Now people are more open, because there is more information about the potential of solar energy. In rural areas, people understand it more." -- Lorena Harp

“I didn’t know it could be done, I wondered if the food would actually be cooked. It’s a wonderful thing,” said this resident of the poor neighbourhood of Vicente Guerrero, in Villa de Zaachila, a municipality of 43,000 people in the state of Oaxaca, some 475 km south of Mexico City.

One thing the inhabitants of Vicente Guerrero have in common is poverty. But although they live in modest houses that in some cases are tin shacks lining unpaved streets and have no sewage system, they do have electricity and drinking water. The women alternate their informal sector jobs with the care of their families.

Diaz used to cook with firewood and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which she now uses less so it lasts longer. “I’ve saved a lot,” she said.

Women in this neighborhood were taught how to use the solar cookers and then became
promoters, organising demonstrations in their homes to exchange recipes, taste their dishes and spread the word about the benefits and positive changes that the innovative stoves have brought.

The solar cookers are low-tech devices that use reflective panels to focus sunlight on a pot in the middle.

Their advantages include being an alternative for rural cooking, because they make it possible to cook without electricity or solid or fossil fuels, pasteurising water to make it drinkable, reducing logging and pollution, helping people avoid breathing smoke from woodstoves, and using renewable energy.

The drawbacks are that they do not work on rainy or cloudy days, it takes a long time to cook the food, compared to traditional stoves, and they have to be used outdoors.

In Mexico, a country of 130 million people, some 19 million use solid fuels for cooking, which caused some 15,000 premature deaths in 2016 from the ingestion of harmful particles, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).

Lorena Harp (L), head of a project that promotes the use of solar cookers in Mexico, shows retired teacher Irma Jiménez how to assemble the device, in the poor neighborhood of Vicente Guerrero, Villa de Zaachila municipality, in the southwestern state of Oaxaca. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The main fuel consumed by 79 percent of these households is LPG, followed by wood or charcoal (11 percent) and natural gas (seven percent).

In Oaxaca, gas and firewood each account for 49 percent of household consumption.

Of the state’s more than four million inhabitants, 70 percent were living in poverty in 2016 and nearly 27 percent in extreme poverty, according to Inegi. Twenty-six percent lived in substandard, crowded housing and 62 percent lacked access to basic services.

Oaxaca is also one of the three Mexican states with the highest levels of energy poverty, which means households that spend more than 10 percent of their income on energy.

Solar cookers can help combat the deprivation.

They first began to be distributed in Oaxaca in 2004. In 2008, activists created the initiative “Solar energy for mobile food stalls in Mexico”, sponsored by three Swiss institutions: the city of Geneva, the SolarSpar cooperative and the non-governmental organisation GloboSol.

Cocina Solar Mexico, a collective dedicated to the use of solar energy for cooking, was founded in 2009. With the support of the non-governmental Solar Household Energy (SHE), based in Washington, an economical, light-weight prototype was built.

In 2016, SHE launched a pilot project in indigenous communities to assess how widely it would be accepted.

“I learned while working with the local women. It was hard, like breaking stones; people knew nothing about it. Now people are more open, because there is more information about the potential of solar energy. In rural areas, people understand it more,” Lorena Harp, head of the initiative, told IPS.

The four-litre pot, which has a useful life of five to 10 years, costs about $25, of which SHE provides half. The group has distributed about 200 solar cookers in 10 communities.

Harp said it is a gender issue, because “women are empowered, they have gained respect in their families.”

The southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca fails to take advantage of is great solar power potential. The picture shows a rooftop at a solar panel factory in Oaxaca City, the state capital. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Despite its potential, Oaxaca does not take advantage of its high levels of solar radiation. Last June, it was listed among the 10 Mexican states with the lowest levels of distributed (decentralised) generation, less than 500 kilowatts, connected to the national power grid, according to the government’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).

In the first half of the year, Oaxaca had an installed photovoltaic capacity of 6.69 megawatts with 747 interconnection contracts, in a country where distributed generation only involves solar energy.

This Latin American country registered 17,767 contracts for almost 125 megawatts (MW), almost the same volume as in the same period in 2018 -when they totaled 35,661 for 233.56 MW, although there were more permits. Since 2007, CRE has registered 112,660 contracts for 817.85 MW of solar power.

But “there is a lack of precise, reliable information and certainty about the savings achieved with distributed generation, which is generated for self-consumption while the surplus is fed into the grid. In addition, there is no policy in the state,” Calderón, also a member of the National Solar Energy Association, told IPS.

But the government of left-wing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in December, is driving the exploitation of fossil fuels and standing in the way of the growth of renewable energies.

It plans to modify the Business Ecocredit initiative, led by the government’s Electric Energy Saving Trust for micro, small and medium enterprises for the acquisition of efficient appliances. The measures include eliminating the 14 percent subsidy and a limit of some 20,000 dollars in financing, but the government has yet to define its future.

In addition, the Oaxaca government’s plan to create two cooperatives for energy for agricultural irrigation does not yet have the 1.75 million dollars needed for two 500-kilowatt solar plants in the municipality of San Pablo Huixtepec to serve 1,200 farmers in 35 irrigation units.

The local women don’t plan to stop using the solar cookers, in a neighbourhood ideal for deploying solar panels and water heaters. “We’re going to keep using it, we’ve seen that it works. We’re going to promote this,” Díaz said, while checking that her stew wasn’g burning.

The SHE assessment found that the solar cookers were widely accepted and have had a positive impact, as nearly half of the local women who use them have reduced by more than 50 percent their use of stoves that cause pollution. Some use the pots up to six times a week, and they have proven to be high quality, durable and affordable. Users also report that the solar cookers have saved them time.

Harp said more partners and government support were needed. “There’s still a long way to go, there are many shortfalls. Something is missing to generate truly widespread use, perhaps a comprehensive policy,” she said.

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]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/mexican-women-use-sunlight-instead-firewood-gas-cook-meals/feed/0The Missing Women in Financehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/missing-women-finance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=missing-women-finance
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/missing-women-finance/#respondTue, 13 Aug 2019 15:39:38 +0000Renana Jhabvala, Sonal Sharma, and Soumya Kapoor Mehtahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162838Women comprise a very small proportion of the financial industry workforce, and this has implications on the way female clients use and benefit from financial services. The Indian financial landscape is undergoing a dramatic change. India witnessed a surge in bank account ownership during the 2011-2017 period: 80 percent of Indians owned a bank account […]

Women comprise a very small proportion of the financial industry workforce, and this has implications on the way female clients use and benefit from financial services.

The Indian financial landscape is undergoing a dramatic change. India witnessed a surge in bank account ownership during the 2011-2017 period: 80 percent of Indians owned a bank account in 2017–an increase of 45 percentage points since 2011. This surge is primarily attributed to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMDJY).

However, this push for financial inclusion has not achieved its true objective, which is to ensure that all citizens not only have access to bank accounts, but avail other facilities that come with it–formal credit, insurance, and overdraft, to name a few.

According to the Global Findex database released by the World Bank, roughly one out of two bank accounts in India remain inactive, about twice the average of other developing economies. Worse, the gender gap in these inactive accounts is notable: 54 percent of women account holders report not using their account, as opposed to 43 percent male account holders.

It is clear that hiring women as financial intermediaries can serve the dual purpose of increasing women’s usage of bank accounts on one hand, and their employment on the other

This gap needs to be considered against the more general narrative on outcomes for women in India, and progress therein. While there has been a big shift in girls’ education in the last decade or so–with more girls enrolling in higher secondary and college education–India’s abominably low female labour force participation rates mean that many girls, despite their aspirations, are passing out of schools with no employment prospects.

The debate on low female labour force participation and the reasons for it are intensive, and have sparked an entire research industry. However a study1 we at SEWA commissioned as part of the World Bank’s Skill India Mission Operation (SIMO) focuses on the possible solutions, one of which is identifying work opportunities available for women in India’s financial sector.

Can the financial industry be a prospective employer for the many, now more educated women, seeking work outside their homes?

Why is this a matter of interest? Because evidence shows that women tend to use their bank accounts and save and borrow more if they are served by female bankers and financial intermediaries.

So, what did we find?

First, female staff comprise a very small proportion of the financial industry workforce. The Bharat Microfinance Report 2017 by Sa-Dhan reveals that the total microfinance workforce in 2017 stood at 89,785 workers. Women comprised only 12 percent of the total workforce and 11 percent of the total field staff.

Our primary study confirmed these dismal numbers on women’s employment in the financial sector. Most of the field agents and employees of the financial institutions we interviewed were male. Perhaps the most dramatic example was that of microfinance institutions where we found that while all the clients were women, all the officers in the field were male.

Second, SEWA’s own studies suggest that women tend to save and borrow more when they are served by female financial intermediaries.

A basic income pilot conducted by SEWA in the state of Madhya Pradesh in 2011-12 compared the extent of financial inclusion in villages where SEWA operated through its network of vitya saathis (female banking correspondents) and villages where SEWA was not present.

It was found that in non-SEWA villages where no basic income was transferred, women held only 24 percent of their savings in financial institutions such as banks and cooperatives (figure 1). In comparison, in SEWA villages, 64 percent of women’s savings were in formal financial institutions.

Other internal studies of SEWA in Bihar and Uttarakhand also show a positive impact of financial intermediaries on women’s savings, and livelihoods.

More women put savings in financial institutions in Madhya Pradesh when in touch with a female banking correspondent | Courtesy: SEWA

Putting these two facts together, it is clear that hiring women as financial intermediaries can serve the dual purpose of increasing women’s usage of bank accounts on one hand, and their employment on the other.

The job opportunity for financial intermediaries is tremendous

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), of the nearly 460 million basic saving accounts opened in scheduled commercial banks between March 2010 and March 2018, nearly one in every two was opened through business correspondence agents or financial intermediaries. Such is the importance of these agents that the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) estimates 3.7 million incremental jobs for financial intermediaries between 2016 and 2022.

This leads to three important policy insights:

Financial intermediaries are capable of carrying out financial functions and are perhaps better than a brick-and-mortar financial institution in reaching out to remote areas owing to their mobility.

There is ample opportunity for mobile agents to act as representatives of financial institutions.

The potential for hiring women as such agents is high.

Yet, a report by the Helix Institute of Digital Finance (2015) on the Indian financial agent network finds that of the 2,682 active financial agents surveyed across rural and urban locations, only about 10 percent were women.

If these levels were raised to 30 percent, then of the 3.7 million projected jobs, 1.1 million could be taken up by women financial intermediaries, benefitting women account holders in the process.

Women face barriers to entering the financial workforce

Women are not aware of jobs in the financial sector. There are few counselling centres in schools and colleges that expose girls to jobs in this sector.

Not many girls and women think of financial institutions as possible employers, and if they do, the government ones are the most coveted.

Women also feel that they do not have the skills required to make a career in finance; some fear the pressure of targets.

Constraints on mobility and security present further restrictions as does the hesitation of seeing no female peers among existing staff.

A male culture in the sector also serves as a barrier, with male staff often socializing over a drink, late after office hours; bonding events that tend to exclude women.

Managers, on their part, are reluctant to hire women. When asked why there were almost no female staff in his bank, a bank manager emphasised “daudne wala sales officer chahiye” (we need sales officers who are capable of running).

It is clear that most of the obstacles cited above seem to be related to the socially determined roles that women have been traditionally assigned. Both men and women view women’s abilities and aspirations through these lenses. This determines why women are either unaware of the opportunities, or are hesitant to enter the field. It also illuminates why managers fail to encourage women to apply, or when they do apply, only assign women back office jobs.

These barriers call for more awareness campaigns in communities about the importance of employment for women. Equally, some supply side shifts are needed.

They may include:

Employing more female financial intermediaries

Raising awareness about these jobs, knowledge building and career counselling

Raising awareness among potential employers about the advantages of employing women and what they need to do to attract and retain them

Providing financial support to buy laptops, point-of-sale machines, and two-wheeler vehicles for women who wish to become intermediaries

At the policy level it requires partnerships between organizations like the NSDC, the Sector Skill Councils and the Association of Banks to create an ecosystem that works towards employing more women as financial intermediaries.

It also requires collection of gender disaggregated data by financial institutions on employees, agents, banking correspondents, customer service providers and other financial intermediaries and making these figures publicly available to track gender discrepancies in the sector.

*Sanchita Mitra was a contributing author to the larger study that this article draws on.

Footnotes

Between August and September 2017, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India, which has been working for decades to empower women in the informal sector, commissioned a study as part of the World Bank’s Skill India Mission Operation (SIMO) to identify work opportunities available for women in India’s financial sector. The study drew on primary interviews with staff of financial institutions and technology service providers (TSPs) to banks as well as women themselves across four states in India: Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra and Punjab. These were buttressed with desk reviews of other reports, and insights from many small areas studies that SEWA has been conducting on the obstacles women face to opening, using bank accounts and to accessing funds should they want to finance any entrepreneurial venture.

Renana Jhabvala is an economist, with a 40 year long association with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), known for her writings on informal women workers. She served as the Chancellor of Gandhigram Rural University from 2012-2017. She was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, and has also been honoured with the FICCI Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, she was awarded a Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Sonal Sharma is an urban development practitioner who works on issues of informality, gender and land rights. She currently leads monitoring, evaluation, and learning for an urban land rights project for women workers in the informal economy at SEWA Bharat. Previously, she has worked with SEWA’s affordable housing finance company and researched on the issue of manual scavenging. She was an Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, and has completed her MA in Development Studies from Ambedkar University.

Soumya Kapoor Mehta is a development economist who has been writing on issues of poverty, social inclusion, social protection, and female labour force participation for the past 15 years. Formerly with the World Bank, she has several articles, World Bank and UN reports, and two books to her credit including one on the potential of basic income as a policy for India. Soumya holds degrees in economics from the University of Cambridge and St Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Every year, over 12,000 women are killed in Latin America. The region is plagued by extremely high levels of violence, and a vacuum of state power persists. Public face of this violence is caused by paramilitary, guerrilla, gangs and armed groups.

But there is an interrelated side of domestic violence that plays out in the private domain. The relationship between these two are yet to be understood, as is the potential of the Women, Peace and Security agenda (WPS) as a fundamental ingredient to sustainable peace and a life free from violence and fear.

The WPS agenda is a United Nations invention. Amid the increasing recognition of women’s and girls’ rights since the creation of the organization in 1945, it was only in the year 2000 that the organization recognized that conflicts affect women and girls, men and boys differently.

Notwithstanding the considerable expansion of engagement with the agenda globally, there is a persistent gap in Latin America. The engagement of local women’s organizations has been limited, while governments are yet to fully grasp the central importance of the agenda in terms of promoting sustainable peace.

Women are systematically excluded from conversations concerning peace and security in the region, rarely included in peace negotiations and are the minority in police and military forces. The WPS agenda has an enormous potential do recognize and address some of these issues

Only six countries in the region launched National Action Plans (NAP) to implement the agenda, and with the exception of El Salvador and Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay mostly focus on their missions carried out abroad.

Ultimately, the gruesome reality of local women living in areas dominated by organized crime, or those that have joined these groups is yet to be understood or recognized by local governments.

There is little evidence on how women’s lives are affected by the extremely high levels of violence that plagues the region. Not only data is limited, only few policies dedicated to addressing violence against women are evidence based.

To make matters worse, there is a normative gap when it comes to addressing these challenges. While NAPs do not recognize these challenges, national legislation focuses on domestic forms of violence. The interplay between private and public violence as well as the direct and indirect effects of organized violence on women in the region are mostly ignored.

Women also consist the primary victims of human trafficking and are often caught up in the crossfire of armed groups, when they are not directly target due to their relationship to members of different groups or gangs.

Violence affects their ability to access formal education, achieve economic independence and even political participation. It also bears the brunt of indirect forms of violence that are rarely recognized, including caring for the injured, emotional trauma among many others.

In Brazil, literally thousands of mothers have lost their sons in marginalized communities, where they are murdered on a daily basis.

Throughout the Americas, women have also joined armed groups and organized crime, serving in various types of roles from combat to support. This is particularly apparent in Colombia, where women made up 44% of the fighting force for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP).

However, even when women take part in these groups, they are often in less powerful and more vulnerable positions. The increased incarceration of women in the region is strong evidence of that. And what is worst, organized crime is born within prison, and that is where we are putting them.

Women are systematically excluded from conversations concerning peace and security in the region, rarely included in peace negotiations and are the minority in police and military forces. The WPS agenda has an enormous potential do recognize and address some of these issues.

However, countries in the region must recognize their high levels of violence and implement NAPs that are adequate to the reality of women living within boundaries. In times where political turbulence may disrupt the women’s rights agenda in many parts of the world, it is increasingly important to build evidence to inform policies and strengthen civil society groups who are in a unique position to remind governments of their commitments to women’s rights and their physical integrity.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/promoting-womens-safety-latin-america/feed/0To Uplift a Woman is to Uplift a Villagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/uplift-woman-uplift-village/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uplift-woman-uplift-village
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/uplift-woman-uplift-village/#respondSat, 10 Aug 2019 23:55:08 +0000IPS Correspondentshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162813Khadija Zuberi, 23, from Ruaha Mbuyuni village in Tanzania’s central highlands, is a single mother to her four-year-old son, Hashim. It has been a financial struggle for Zuberi—who has completed high school, but has no further qualifications—to raise her son. While she is still in a relationship with Hashim’s father and he reportedly supports them, […]

An eight-month-old boy is examined by a doctor at Amana Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. While women are increasingly using contraceptives to plan their families, there are still too many who lack access to critical reproductive health services. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By IPS CorrespondentsDAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Aug 10 2019 (IPS)

Khadija Zuberi, 23, from Ruaha Mbuyuni village in Tanzania’s central highlands, is a single mother to her four-year-old son, Hashim.

It has been a financial struggle for Zuberi—who has completed high school, but has no further qualifications—to raise her son. While she is still in a relationship with Hashim’s father and he reportedly supports them, he doesn’t live in Ruaha Mbuyuni village, located in Iringa.

Zuberi has worked all sorts of jobs to provide for her son. She remembers her first job as a helper at a local food outlet. She was paid the equivalent of a dollar a day for a job that started at 5am and ended 14 hours later.

“You find yourself working so hard and when you get paid you can’t even meet your basics needs,” she told IPS.

Last March, Zuberi became a recipient of a project called Malkia wetu, Swahili for ‘Our Queens’. It is a programme run by Kilimo Kan, a local agribusiness that supports the development of smallholder farmers in Iringa. Malkia wetu specifically targets young women between the ages of 14 and 24 from Ruaha Mbuyuni village. After training the young women, they are each allocated a piece of land and agricultural inputs with the agreement that the produce will be sold back to Malkia wetu.

“The programme facilitates young women to use agribusiness to avoid risky livelihood options such as early marriage and pregnancy or prostitution and instead become financially literate, entrepreneurial leaders generating income from farming,” the company says on a Facebook post.

Now Zuberi runs her own small food business, selling soup to villagers in the morning and evening and also farming tomotoes.

Many don’t have access to critical reproductive health services

Young women like Zuberi aren’t an exception here. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one in four Tanzanian adolescents aged 15-19 have already begun having children and the fertility rate is five children for every women in a country of just over 57 million people.

While women are increasingly using contraceptives to plan their families, UNFPA states “there are still too many who lack agency, education, and access to critical reproductive health services. The unmet need for family planning for married women (aged 15 to 49) stands at 32 percent”.

A Department for International Development (DFID) study titled “Barriers to Women’s Economic Inclusion in Tanzania” lists these barriers as time poverty (because women spend significant time on household chores); lack of education; and even reproductive health pressures.

While Tanzania remains one of the African nations to experience sustained economic growth, according to USAID this is limited by a high population growth: “High population growth and low productivity in labour-intensive sectors like agriculture, which employs 75 percent of the population, limit broad-based economic growth. ”

African and Asian Parliamentarians met in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from Aug. 5 to 8 to address what needs to be done ahead of the summit on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25).

ICPD25 refers to a 1994 meeting in Cairo, Egypt, where world governments adopted a plan of action, calling for women’s reproductive health and rights to take centre stage in national and global development efforts.

Titled the “African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development for ICPD+25”, the Tanzania meeting this week aimed to provide a platform for deepening regional parliamentarians’ understanding of the significance of UNFPA’s work and equipping parliamentarians with knowledge and skills to take concrete measures to advance the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action and Sustainable Development Goals.

The Programme of Action recognises “that reproductive health and rights, as well as women’s empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of population and development programmes,” according to UNFPA. The meeting was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA). While parliamentarians recognised that progress had been made since Cairo, considerable gaps remain within certain countries.

Tanzania’s Speaker of parliament, Job Ndugai, said that his country was committed to the ICPD Programme of Action. He also urged Tanzanians to limit the size of their families relation to their economic status so that parents could provide their children with the basic necessities.

“We should look at this on a family level. You and your family…the children that you are [having] do they reflect your financial status? The important thing here is the amount of people we have should relate with our economic [status],’’ said Ndugai.

Sinichi Goto, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Tanzania, said African countries were making efforts to achieve the SDG’s. While Asia currently has more than half of the world’s population, Africa is estimated to account for more than 90 percent of the increase in the global population between 2020-2100.

Empowering women means empowering communities

Nenita Dalde, from the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation said that African and Asian governments have to ensure that women benefitted equally and participate directly in development programmes and projects.

The gains of this would be far-reaching. “When you empower women you heighten employee morale and it inspires them to give back,” she told IPS.

Helen Kuyembeh, a former member of parliament from Sierra Leone told IPS that communities experienced positive impacts when women are empowered.

“The benefits start in the household when [a woman’s] income increases,” she said, explaining that it will impact what the family ate, their health and the children’s education.

She added that when women were empowered to start they are own businesses they usually would employ other women and provide inspiration to them.

She has seen this first hand.

“When I was an MP, I created programmes to support women in my village to become more self-sufficient and this programme has uplifted a lot of women from my village and now they are not lonely and unhappy,” Kuyembeh said.

Zuberi, is more certainly a case study for this.

She earned 450 dollars from selling her first harvest of tomatoes, and makes over 300 dollars a month in a country where the mean monthly income for men is 117 dollars a month and 71 dollars a month for women, according to the DFID study. Women’s salaries are on average 63 percent lower than those paid men here, according to USAID.

But not Zuberi. With the money she earns she can pay her own rent and is able to support her son.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/uplift-woman-uplift-village/feed/0How India’s Indigenous Female Forest Dwellers Feel about Owning Their Own Landhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-feel-owning-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-feel-owning-land
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-feel-owning-land/#respondFri, 09 Aug 2019 16:41:43 +0000Stella Paulhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162810Kumaribai Jamkatan, 51, has been fighting for women’s land rights since 1987. Though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women, women first started to stake their claim for formal ownership of land only after 2005–the year the government accorded legal rights to daughters to be co-owners of family-owned land. For the […]

Kumaribai Jamkatan, 51, has been fighting for women’s land rights since 1987.
Though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women, women first started to stake their claim for formal ownership of land only after 2005–the year the government accorded legal rights to daughters to be co-owners of family-owned land.
For the Indigenous communities, it was the Forest Rights Act 2006 which allowed women to own land.
The struggle has been long and hard with social, financial and legal challenges, Jamkatan says.

“In the beginning, nobody even believed in the individual land rights of women. Some saw it as a huge work burden as the land is usually in the name of the patriarch of the family and granting ownership to women would mean distributing the land to individual family members.”
About 3,000 women are reported to have received land rights since local Indigenous villages in Gadchiroli district grouped together to assist one another.
Jamkatan is pursuing a personal goal of helping 1,000 women get land rights this year.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-feel-owning-land/feed/0In the Midst of Conflict, India’s Indigenous Female Forest Dwellers Own their Landhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/in-the-midst-of-conflict-indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-own-the-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-the-midst-of-conflict-indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-own-the-land
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/in-the-midst-of-conflict-indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-own-the-land/#respondFri, 09 Aug 2019 16:31:55 +0000Stella Paulhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162804On the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, IPS correspondent Stella Paul speaks to indigenous women in Korchi village in western India, about what it means to own their own land.

Jam Bai (in red sari), a member of the Indigenous 'Kawar' community, sows rice saplings in her paddy field as her relatives and neighbours help her. After years of struggle she now officially owns the land she farms on. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella PaulKORCHI/GADCHIROLI, India, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

Jam Bai, an Indigenous farmer from Korchi village in western India, is a woman in hurry. After two months of waiting, the rains have finally come and the rice saplings for her paddy fields must be sown this week while the land is still soft.

But on Saturday Aug. 3, a day before IPS visited the village, government security forces shot dead seven armed rebels belonging to a far left, radical communist group called the ‘Maoists’ or ‘Naxals’ in a village 40 km from here.

Located roughly 750 km east of Mumbai in Maharashtra state’s Gadchiroli district, which has one of the India’s thickest teakwood forests,the area is often in the news for the violent incidents such as landmine blasts, killing, gunfire, arrests and protests that occur here. Maoists have been waging war against the government for over a decade here as they demand a classless society.

Since the incident, there has been an unofficial shutdown around Korchi. As tension and fear spreads, Bai could not find a single labourer to hire. But the 53-year-old will not give up: not sowing the fields this season is not an option.

Her reasons are not only financial but also emotional.

After years of struggle she now officially owns the land.

So today Bai has called on several of her women relatives and friends from the village. With saris pulled up over their knees and heels dug into the muddy water, they bend in a row, holding a bundle of saplings in one hand, while sowing a small bunch with the other.

“I have five acres of land. So far we have finished sowing about one acre. There are four more to go, but we will surely finish the rest in two to three days,” says Bai. The women laugh and cheer for her.

The village of Korchi consists of just over 3,000 people, most of whom are small and marginal farmers belonging to Gondi and Kawar Indigenous communities, who recognised by the country’s constitution as ‘Schedule Tribes’—the official term for Indigenous peoples in the country.

The area may be conflict-ridden but studies show that the district stands as being the first in all of India to grant land rights to Indigenous people. Much of this is credited to local Indigenous women like Bai who have been leading a ground movement for years for formal ownership of both the farming land and the forest land.

The paddy fields that Bai owns are located at the edge of a her village, beyond which lies a forest. For generations, Bai’s family has sustained itself both by farming on the land and collecting fruit, tree bark, vegetables and herbs that grow in the forest, just like other members of their Indigenous communities.

But they never possessed official rights over either of the land areas.

It was only after the government started to implement the Forest Rights Acts 2006—a new law which recognised the rights of the Indigenous peoples living in the forest—that Bai applied for formal ownership to the land her family held. Finally, after nearly a decade’s struggle, she received her land rights last year.

“Before me, my mother in law and her mother in law also sowed rice in this land. But 15-20 years ago, everyone started to say, ‘this land belongs to government, you are only occupying it’. That is when we realised that we need formal rights and ownership. After the new forest law came, along with others, I also applied in 2008 for my rights. Finally, last year I received my Patta (ownership certificate),” she says.

A woman shows an application for individual landrights and the documents that are required. This includes maps and receipts of the land tax paid to the district government by the family for past three generations, multiple signatures of the applicant, their family members, the village chief, and senior government officials at the Land and Revenue department etc., several rounds of verification by village and district level officials. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Land ownership for women: a complex story

Kumaribai Jamkatan, 51, is one of those leaders who have been fighting for women’s land rights since 1987.

Though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women, women first started to stake their claim for formal ownership of land only after 2005–the year the government accorded legal rights to daughters to be co-owners of family-owned land.

For the Indigenous communities, it was the Forest Rights Act 2006 which allowed women to own land.

Presently, the Indigenous people here in Korchihave two kinds of land rights:

The rights of an individual over farmland in their village, and

A collective right over a specific area in the forest for hunting-gathering – which was made possible in 2006 under a special forest law (The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act).

Under this law, the entire community shares the forest resources of barks, seeds, fruit and vegetables, which include; gooseberries, blackberries, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, soap nuts, and various herbs and shrubs. All of these have been part of the Indigenous communities’ diets and source of their livelihood for generations.

The land allotted to a village community is typically decided by the size of the village population. However, it usually falls between four to 10 acres.

But their struggle for land rights started decades ago and continues today as many women are still waiting to receive land rights due to slow pace of implementation of Forest Rights Act and lack of awareness in their communities. According to India’s Agriculture Census 2010-2011, nationally, women own only 10.34 percent of land.

The struggle has been long and hard with social, financial and legal challenges, Jamkatan says.

“In the beginning, nobody even believed in the individual land rights of women. Some saw it as a huge work burden as the land is usually in the name of the patriarch of the family and granting ownership to women would mean distributing the land to individual family members.

“Then there are legal challenges: the application needs several documents, including maps and receipts of the land tax paid to the district government by the family for past three generations, multiple signatures of the applicant, family members, the village chief, and senior government officials at the Land and Revenue department etc., several rounds of verification by the village and the district level officials and goes through several government agencies all of which take a long time,” says Jamkatan.

In 2017, locals, supported by a local NGO, Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi (We for our own health in Marathi), formed the Maha Gram Sabha (the Great Village Assembly). The assembly is a community-based organisation with members from 90 Indigenous villages of the district’s 125 villages. Gadchiroli district is at least nine times the size of London, with a total population of about 1.7 million.

The Great Village Assembly has not only spearheaded the land rights movement of women in a collective manner, but also asserted their rights to the forests and its resources. About 3,000 women are reported to have received land rights since the assembly was formed.

The assembly believes that Indigenous people have the first right to land and forest. When this is ensured, the community has a better life and the forest also flourishes, Nand Kishore Wairagade, a former village chief and now an advisor to the assembly, tells IPS.

Wairagade says the formation of the Great Village Assembly helped revolutionise people’s rights over the land: “There are 90 villages in this assembly who meet regularly and decide on everything from applying for land rights to collecting forest resources like Tendu leaves (a significant source of income for the forest peoples which is used to make hand-rolled cigarettes), gooseberry, mushroom etc. The assembly also oversees the sale of Tendu leaves, negotiates its price with the buyers and ensures that the money is paid directly to bank accounts of the women sellers.”

These have all been hard-won gains.

“We have taken to the road many times. Since 2012, when the government first decided to grant us the collective rights, we have held protest rallies, sit-in demonstrations, road blockades and strikes. Finally, last year they started to distribute the certificates again. Now, people in 77 villages (out of the 90 villages that are part of the assembly) have land ownership but people in 13 villages are yet to receive theirs,” says Jamkatan who is pursuing a personal goal of helping 1,000 women get land rights this year.

Commenting on the report, Andrea Takua Fernandes, frontline organiser for Indigenous communities at 350.org, tells IPS the leadership of the Indigenous people is key to addressing both the climate crisis and deforestation. “The biodiversity defended by Indigenous people will be essential to cracking the code of how to respond sustainably and fairly to the climate breakdown.”

In Korchi village, Wairagade shares an example of how Indigenous people use land in a sustainable manner: “the community here knows exactly how much to take from the forest. Their need is not driven by market and profits, but meeting the need of the family. When they harvest bamboo shoots, they take only a few to feed themselves and leave enough in the wild, so that the forest can be regenerated. So, sustainability is in our culture.”

No land rights, no empowerment of women
Sarajaulabai Ganesh Sonar, a smallholder farmer in Korchi who owns three acres of land which she was officially awarded the title deed to last year, believes that without land ownership, women’s empowerment is incomplete.

She tells IPS that previously women were too scared to demand their share of land.

“Now they see it as a fight for their own identity. [A woman] can also earn a living from her own land. In the forest also, before we had collective rights, we used to be scared of the forest guards and think ‘what if he caught us and beat us etc’. Now we don’t have to sneak in and hide. So, for us, land is our real source of empowerment.”

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/in-the-midst-of-conflict-indias-indigenous-female-forest-dwellers-own-the-land/feed/0The Nairobi Summit – Towards a Watershed Momenthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 16:03:21 +0000Dr. Ida Odingahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162779In 2019 a female scientist created an algorithm that gave the world the first ever images of a black hole. Working with a team of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, a young woman led the development of a computer program that in her own words enabled them to “achieve something once thought impossible.” During this […]

In 2019 a female scientist created an algorithm that gave the world the first ever images of a black hole. Working with a team of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, a young woman led the development of a computer program that in her own words enabled them to “achieve something once thought impossible.”

Photo: Heshimi Kenya

During this same year, over 200 million women in developing countries will not have access to effective methods of contraception to delay or avoid pregnancy. Approximately 830 women a day will die during pregnancy or childbirth from preventable causes. And sexual and gender based violence including harmful practices like early marriage and female genital mutilation, will still plague millions of girls and young women. Girls and women denied basic human rights and robbed of their potential to achieve the impossible.

In 1994, the visionary Programme of Action was agreed to by 179 governments at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. The Programme of Action recognized that reproductive health and rights, as well as women’s empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of healthy robust societies that promote the well-being of populations and economic and social development of nations. Since ICPD, governments, civil society, youth networks have all worked towards decreasing maternal deaths, eliminating harmful practices and promoting gender equality.

The global community is now gearing up to mark 25 years since the historic ICPD through the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD25 which will be held from 12-14 November 2019 under the theme “Accelerating the Promise”.

I am proud that my country Kenya, will be hosting this important Summit, which is aimed at mobilizing the political will, financial commitment and community support we need to fully realize the ICPD Programme of Action.

Indeed, by the time we leave Nairobi, we must ensure that everyone has agreed to play their part in reaching zero unmet need for family planning information and services, zero preventable maternal deaths, and zero sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against girls and women. Evidence shows that the benefits that would accrue from fulfilling the ICDP agenda would be far reaching in transforming lives and improving the wellbeing of families, communities, and nations.

Dr. Ida Odinga, EGH

In Kenya, significant progress in health care has been made with Universal Health Coverage(UHC) a top priority for the Government. Thanks to the leadership, passion and commitment of the First Lady of Kenya, Ms Margret Kenyatta through her Beyond Zero campaign there has been a significant drop in maternal and child mortality. We have to now go for zero deaths. Reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health is key to achieving UHC.

High rates of teenage pregnancy, take girls out of school and compromises their health. Young people face stark challenges in employment as 1,000,000 people enter a labor force that can only absorb 150,000 new entrants. Access to health services and information, school retention and quality education will help these young girls stay in school and lead healthy lives. These are among the issues that the Summit will address.

However, in order for the Nairobi Summit to be a game changer, we need to speak for those that can’t speak, speak for those who are not heard and to add our voices to those who continue to work for sexual and reproductive rights for all. We must reaffirm our commitments to the ICPD goals and Agenda 2030. We must absorb the lessons learned over the last 25 years and do better.

I am delighted that my country is partnering with UNFPA and the Government of Denmark to host the Nairobi Summit and reaffirm the global commitment to ICPD. This is a watershed moment as we are a mere 10 years away from our commitment to fulfill the SDGs.

I look forward to seeing all the participants in Nairobi and hope everyone will follow the proceedings of the Nairobi Summit and learn how we can all play a role in bringing about change and keeping the promise of ICPD. Ensuring that all women and girls can reach for the stars and achieve the impossible.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment/feed/0Domestic Violence and the Role of Educationhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/domestic-violence-role-education/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=domestic-violence-role-education
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/domestic-violence-role-education/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 11:32:36 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162767Trying to teach and inspire youngsters is a daunting task. Many teachers tend to suffer from a harrowing, bad conscience, obliged as they are to follow routines, rules, and regulations set down by their employers while knowing that these are difficult to apply and provide with desired results. Worst is a nagging feeling of inability […]

Trying to teach and inspire youngsters is a daunting task. Many teachers tend to suffer from a harrowing, bad conscience, obliged as they are to follow routines, rules, and regulations set down by their employers while knowing that these are difficult to apply and provide with desired results. Worst is a nagging feeling of inability to reach out to the students. Most teachers want their pupils to be good learners, critically thinking individuals who feel gratified and keen to change things for the better.

Occasionally, I return to my original profession as a high school teacher. Long intervals between such experiences make it possible for me to perceive attitude changes among students and myself. When I two years ago had another stint of teaching in Sweden I found a new obstacle to students´ interest in direct social interaction and learning – smartphones. In many schools, they are now banned from lessons, though not from the one where I was working. Many of the teachers were quite young and belonged to the mobile phone generation. They explained that smartphones had become an essential part of their lives and instead of being banned they ought to be integrated into education.

Smartphones infringed on many students´ attention. Several felt forced to look at them over and over again – texting, checking things on the web, playing games, doing selfies, nothing of which had anything to do with school work. I found some of my pupils to be incapable of concentrating on a specific task, listening to me or even watch a movie for more than five minutes. No matter how exciting they originally had found the film, they soon felt an uncontrollable urge to switch on and check their smartphones. When I asked what could be so extremely urgent, they generally lied and said it was their mother calling, or that they had been alerted about some kind of emergency. However, I soon found out that several of the girls were checking out Kim Kardashian´s website, while boys often had become absorbed in some inane game, like directing a rolling ball through meandering tunnels.

Before my latest teaching experience, I had been happily unaware of Kim Kardashian´s influence on women’s´ lives, but now I know that she and other members of her family have a combined Instagram-following of more than 536 million and that Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a reality television series following the lives of Kim and her four sisters, is running on its 16th season. However, Kim´s coffee table book Selfish from 2015, presenting selfies she had taken over the time of nine years, ”flopped” – selling ”only” 125,000 copies. Apart from ”acting” in a reality show and posting entries on Instagram, Kim has a line of clothing and other items mirroring the Kardashians´”aspirational and over-the-top lifestyle”, celebrating a body image of slim waists, large breasts and hips, ”a hyper-feminised, high-glamour look that seems calculated to entice the male gaze, sexy rather than being fashionable,”1 while Keeping Up With the Kardashians pays hommage to a fake existence of staged worries, petty concerns and idle gossip, where ”having fun” equals expensive activities at luxury resorts and spas, or the planning of and participation in clamorous, superficial and glittering parties. Kim Kardashian´s influence cannot be ignored, her fame and wealth make even a notoriously bad listener like U.S. President Donald J. Trump willing to lend her an ear.

The Kardashian style, as the family´s approach to life is called in the TV-series, is reflected by an app that was immensely popular among many of my female students. It is a role-playing game in which participants are invited to impersonate an ”up-and-coming” Hollywood celebrity climbing a status ladder passing ”levels of stardom” from E to A, completing tasks like posing for magazines and going on dates. This while the more enterprising among my school-tired male students were engaged in complicated and violent role-playing video games like Grand Theft Auto V and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. It felt as if the entire school system was under a massive attack from commercial interests, which apart from being mind-numbing are cementing prejudicial gender roles.

Antiquated attitudes about gender roles among several of my students made me doubt if they had participated in an obligatory subject of the Swedish elementary school system – home and consumer knowledge, which for several years train boys and girls in managing household chores and childcare. No one who has received that training might claim to be unknowledgeable about elementary household chores. Furthermore, in Swedish schools, both boys and girls are trained in needlework, as well as metal- and wood handicraft. I find this approach highly commendable as it benefits a sense of responsibility and gender equality. However, these admirable gains may be counteracted by mass communication supporting bigoted gender roles that limit and predispose abilities and perspective of both girls and boys.

If human development is to be achieved, the best resolution of any nation would be to promote general wellbeing and prosperity by providing effective and affordable health care and education to all of its citizens, irrespective of gender, wealth and social standing. Furthermore, such education has to benefit gender equality and encourage personal accountability. Most of my students were well aware of the concept of human rights, i.e. their own rights, though they were often unaware that this concept includes human duties, i.e. concerns about the welfare of others.

I recently came to think of this after reading a well-written Italian novel Sei Mia: Un amore violento by Eleonora de Nardis, which describes the suffering of a mother of three under the brutal and degrading regime of a spouse, who furthermore is married to and sharing a family with another woman. I am convinced that this novel illustrated the suffering of women all around the world. Women who on their own carry the entire responsibility of running a home and taking care of children engendered together with an irresponsible man, who furthermore, as in Sei Mia, abuses, maltreats and controls the mother of his own offspring under the feeble pretext that this is his right as a man, assuming that his gender excludes him from cooking, childcare, and expressions of emotional care for his family, as well as compassion and responsibility for the wellbeing of others.

It is scientifically proven that domestic violence generally occurs when an abuser assumes he is entitled to behave as a selfish tyrant. A male perpetrator of domestic violence is often supported, accepted and even justified by his socio-cultural upbringing and ambiance. A background and attitude that tends to be shared by his victims, who are unlikely to report this kind of violence to authorities that often condone the abuser´s behaviour. Several legal systems make a difference between ”domestic” and ”common” law and it is quite common that it is up to a victim to report domestic violence, under the pretext that this cannot be done by an ”outsider”. An absurdity considering that it often proves to be fatal for a victim to even consider accusing a violent, capricious abuser who exercises total control and to whom she is entirely dependent.2 Such a state of affairs produces an intergenerational cycle of abuse in children and other family members, who are brought up to consider such abuse as acceptable. Attitudes that may only be changed through an obligatory education, which breaks down gender inequalities. Efforts that have to be combined with the strict application of laws penalizing domestic abuse, while safeguarding male responsibilities for support of their households, making it obligatory to participate in the care of their children, for example by guaranteeing not only maternal leave from work but paternal leave as well.

There is a direct correlation between a country´s level of gender equality and rates of domestic violence, where countries with less gender equality experience higher rates of domestic abuse. Domestic violence is an abominable crime that not only cripples the ability for victims to participate ihe creation of genern tal, social wellbeing, it also tends to destroy or frustrate children´s development as compassionate and progressive human beings. Apparently, has Swedish education had a beneficial impact on gender equality and when it comes to the condemnation of domestic violence. However, I hope the impact of stereotyped gender roles propagated by trendsetters and some influential video game developers will not be able to diminish such achievements.